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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






CHRIST IN HADES 



51 fnm. 



WILLIAM WrLOKD 




Karefiri eh rhu a5r]V. 

Symbolum Athanasianum. 

?il}e tiescentictJ tnto ?QcU. 

The Apostles' Creed. 

Mortem suscepisse et vicisse, intrasse inferos et redisse, venisse in 
jura Tartari, et Tartari jura solvisse, non est fragilitas, sed potestas. 

Pet. Chrysologus. 



NEW-YORK : 
D. APPLETON & CO., 200 BROADWAY. 

PHILADELPHIA : 

GEO. S. APPLETON, 164 CHESNUT-ST. 

M.nrrcLT. 




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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the jear 1851, by 

WILLIAM W. LORD, 

In the Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of the United States, for the District of 
New Jersey. 



HON. WILLIAM B. KINNEY, 

WITH THE 

HOPE THAT HIS JUDGMENT WILL APPROVE A WORK 

TO WHICH FRIENDSHIP 

WILL NOT PERMIT HIM TO BE INDIFFERENT, 

E-tis 33ocm is KnscrflietJ, 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



" Of those which did believe the name of Hades to belong- 
unto that general place which comprehended all the souls of 
men, some of them thought that Christ descended to that place 
of Hades, where the souls of all the faithful, from the death of 
the righteous Abel to the death of Christ, were detained, and 
there, dissolving all the power by which they were detained be- 
low, translated them into a far more glorious place, and estated 
them in a condition far more happy in the heavens above. * * * 
Another opinion hath obtained, especially in our Church, that 
the end for which our Saviour descended into hell was to tri- 
umph over Satan and all the powers below, within their own 
dominions. And this hath been received as grounded on the 
Scriptures and consent of Fathers." — Pearson on the Creed. 

It was my purpose, in undertaking this work, 
to give poetic form, design, and history to the 
descent of Christ into hell ; a fact that has for so 
many ages attracted the curiosity of the human 
tnind, as to furnish occasion for surprise that the 



VI PREFACE. 

attempt lias not hitherto been made. As regards 
the end for which He descended, I have adhered 
to the Christian tradition that it was to free the 
souls of the ancient saints confined in the temporal 
paradise of the Under- world, embracing also in my 
design the less general opinion, that it was to de- 
monstrate His universal supremacy by appearing 
among the damned. 

A source of additional human interest was sug- 
gested by the relation which men, as a distinct 
order of beings, might be supposed to sustain to 
demons in the place of their common doom, and 
under new conditions of existence ; such, I con- 
ceived, as would make it possible in some degree 
to realize even the divine fictions of the Greek 
mythology, under the forms and with the attri- 
butes accorded them by ancient religions, and by 
the poetry of all time. This could not fail to sug- 
gest the further conception of introducing the divin- 
ities of our forefathers, and of other great families 
of mankind, thus bringing together in action and 
contrast the deified men, or various representatives 



PREFACE. Vll 

of an heroic humanity, among different races : nor 
did it seem too great a stretch of imaginative prob- 
ability to conceive that their general characteristics 
might be adopted and imitated by beings already 
invested by the human mind with an indefinite 
power, and inhabiting a world in which the won- 
derful becomes the probable. 

But it is, after all, the general purpose of exhib- 
iting the triumph of moral power over all physical 
and inferior spiritual force, in the descent of Christ 
into hell, which gives my design the complex char- 
acter of a mythic, heroic, and Christian poem, and, 
at the same time, constitutes the unity of its parts. 
The ancients, whose representative types I intro- 
duce, knew and appreciated but two kinds of 
power, brute or physical, and spiritual, including 
all occult and supernatural efficacy, and strength 
of intellect and will. Virtue, triumphant by the 
aid of adventitious force, or relying upon uncon- 
querable pride and disdain to resist it, was the 
highest reach of their dynamic conceptions. Moral 
power is properly a Christian idea. It is not, 



Vlll PREFACE. 

therefore, without what I conceive to be a true as 
well as a poetic apprehension of the design of the 
Descent into Hell, that the heroes of profane, and 
the not fabulous Titans of sacred antiquity, by 
their rivalries and contentions, brought together 
in arms for a trial of their comparative strength, 
are suddenly confronted with a common and dis- 
similar antagonist, and "all strength, all terror, 
single or in bands, that ever was put forth" 
opposed to that novel, and, save in the Temptation, 
hitherto untested power, represented by Christ, the 
author of the theory and master of the example. 

He is not supposed to appear among them 
" grasping in his hand ten thousand thunders," 
but endued with an equal power, the result and 
expression of perfect virtue and rightful authority. 
His triumph is attributed neither to natural, nor to 
supernatural power ; but to moral superiority, 
evincing itself in His aspect, and exercising its 
omnipotence upon the soul and conscience. That 
in the conception of a great Christian poet, His 
appearance among the rebel angels in heaven was 



PREFACE. IX 

distinguisliecl by the former attributes, is due, per- 
haps, to the heroic prejudice of a mind thoroughly- 
imbued with the spirit of pagan writers, and of 
the Hebrew Scriptures. 

As to invention and art, if a poem does not 
commend itself by the interest it excites, the 
author, except in writing it, could not worse 
bestow his tediousness than in its defence and 
exposition. I may be permitted to say, how- 
ever, that while a conviction that the character of 
my own performance must necessarily bring it 
into comparison with greater works, could not de- 
ter me from undertaking what seemed of sufficient 
promise to justify some degree of daring, I am 
well aware that, compared with these, it is but a 
symphony to a strain — an urn to a temple ; and as 
such let it be judged. The reverence for great 
poets which, after them, would give no hearing 
to one using what we may call, for convenience' 
sake, the Christian mythology, is a prejudice as 
fatal to creative art, and as certainly tending to 
the poverty of letters, as would have been a simi- 



PREFACE. 



lar notion among tlie Greeks and Eomans with 
respect to tlie mythology to which Homer in like 
manner, and to a still greater degree, gave form 
and expression. The question in such cases is not 
whether the later poet uses associations established 
in the minds of men by earlier poets, — if it were, 
even Milton, and perhaps Homer, would stand 
convicted of obligation to greater inventive ge- 
nius, — ^but whether he combines, for an original 
purpose, newly discovered with existing mate- 
rials ; whether the imjjression produced is that 
of invention and novelty; — not whether he ori- 
ginated the entire mass of materials, some of 
which, at least, are, with all writers who endure 
the test of time, as old as history and nature : — in 
a word, it is whether character and incident are 
taken from existing works, or are the result of 
new combinations, which flow naturally from an 
original design, working itself out in intelligible 
poetic forms. 

Eastridge, Dec. 8, 1850. 



ARGUMENT. 



BOOK I. 

Discovers Satan seated in despair among the infernal 
powers, upon his return to hell after his defeat in the Tempta- 
tion of Christ. 

Baal, an angel and one of the ethnic deities, rising in his 
place among the dejected iiends, denounces Satan ; accusing him 
of imbecility, on account of his defeat in his recent trial of the 
divine pretensions of Christ, and the despair into which he is 
thrown by his failure. He advises that some other take the 
throne, — which Satan, not ascending, seems voluntarily to have 
abdicated, as the former intimates, in view of the predicted 
descent of his Victor into that world. He complains that they 
have been disappointed in their hopes of relief from the pains 
of their present condition through the agency of Satan, and 
inveighs against the human race in hell, and their elevation 
by Satan to equal dignity and power. 

Astarte, a female angel and one of the Sidonian divinities, 



Xll ARGUMENT. 

replies ; accusing Baal of disloyaltj' to liis natural sovereign, and 
defending Satan from his impntalions. She is followed by Cain, 
who, as the oldest of his race in hell, and as their natural head, 
has been elevated by Satan to the place next himself. He re- 
torts the taunts of Baal, on behalf of himself and his kind, defies 
and denounces him and his faction. In consequence, the human 
and the angelic powers separate, and draw off under their re- 
spective leaders, leaving Satan, where the opening of the book 
discovers him, buried in apathy and despair. 



BOOK II. 

The inferior paradise and its inhabitants described. 

Abel narrates to Adam and the Saints a vision, in which the 
death of his Antitype, Christ, is revealed, and its relation to 
them, and to mankind in general, indicated. At the conclusion 
of the narration, the Saints break forth into a hymn, in which 
they adore the Word in His threefold aspect of Creator, Enlight- 
ener, and Redeemer of the world, and implore His immediate 
presence and revelation among them, in their world of banish- 
ment and privation — banishment from Him, and privation of His 
light. Christ descends. The meeting of Christ with Adam, 
and His reception by the Saints. 



BOOK III. 

In the infernal Hades the human and the angelic powers 
meet in the field to test their comparative strength, and decide 



ARGUMENT. XIU 

the dominion of liell. The conflict, yet undecided, is termi- 
nated, throiigh divine interference, by a tempest that over- 
whelms botli. 

BOOK IV. 

Ciirist in Paradise declares to the Saints the purpose of His 
descent ; explains why it has been so long- delayed ; announces 
His intention of passing over into the Tartarean Hades ; and in- 
forms them of what is there performing, viz., the convening, 
through their contentions and rivalries, of the infernal powei's, 
by their own act, but in the divine intention, in anticipation of 
His appearance among them. 



BOOK V. 

In Tartarus the angelic forces, withdrawn from the field, take 
counsel how to retrieve the disaster suffered in their first conflict 
with the human powers. Baal accuses the tyranny of fate, and 
advises another trial of their fortune, but unavailingly. Asmod 
rises and refutes the doctrine of fate, and denies that their de- 
feat is to be attributed to its influence — concedes the equal 
power of the human spirits, and advises a secret and sudden 
assault ; which they prepare to put in execution. 

The human powers, convened upon similar occasion, are ad- 
dressed by Cecrops : he congratulates them upon their partial 
success, but argues the necessity of strengthening themselves by 
alliance with all the races in hell of a common origin — intimates 
that the Titans, conceived to be the Antediluvian or Archaic 



XIV ARGUMENT. 

race of men, and also the Asar, the Northern heroes and deified 
men, or those who enacted their parts, should be sought in the 
several and distinct regions of hell which they chose to inhabit, 
and their alliance and aid solicited. They approve the project, 
and send ambassadors to the Titans and the Asar. 



BOOK VI. 

The Ambassador to the Asar, after a difficult access to the 
region, enters the imitated Valhalla. His reception by the Asar, 

The Ambassador to the Titans discovers and addresses them. 
His reception by them ; their rising. 



BOOK VII. 

The Asar, seized with the Berserker fury (see note 2, Book 
VI.) at the sight of armed strangers, fall upon them to whose 
aid they had been summoned. While the Northern powers are 
thus engaged in contest with their kind, the angelic enemy 
make their attack from the air. 

At a sound, supposed by them to be a manifestation of the 
divine power for their overthrow as in the former conflict, the 
angelic host retire. The Titans approach. The meeting of the 
Titans and the later races of mankind. The angelic powers 
return and renew the assault, and the whole human race in hell 
become engaged with them in a general conflict. 



A R CI (J M !•; i\ t . XV 

BOOK VIII. 

A light appears on the side of hell next paradise, and Christ, 
followed hj'the unarmed host of saints, approaches the embattled 
fiends and infernal powers. Terror-struck, they retreat for aid to 
Satan (who has hitherto remained, as the First Book describes him, 
seated apart, and indifferent to what was passing in his domain). 
Satan rises and advances to meet Christ. Their meeting. The 
triumph of Christ, and His ascent from Hades with the Saints. 



INVOCATION. 



Thou of the darkness and the fire, and fame 
Avenged by misery and the Orphic doom, 
Bard of the tyrant-lay ! whom dreadless wrongs, 
Impatient, and pale thirst for justice drove, 
A visionary exile, from the earth, 
To seek it in its iron reign — stern ! 
And not accepting sympathy, accept 
A not presumptuous offering, that joins 
That region with a greater name : And thou, 
Of my own native language, dread bard ! 
Who, amid heaven's unshadowed light, by thee 
Supremely sung, abidest — shouldst thou know 
Who on the earth with thoughts of thee erects 
And purifies his mind, and, but by thee. 



XVlll INVOCATION. 

Awed by no fame, boldened by thee, and awed — 
Not with thy breadth of wing, yet with the power 
To breathe the region air — attempts the height 
Where never Scio's singing eagle towered, 
Nor that high-soaring Theban moulted plume, 
Hear thou my song ! hear, or be deaf, who may. 

And if not rashly, or too soon, I heed 
The impulse, but have waited on my heart 
With patience, and its utterance stilled with awe 
Of what inspired it, till I felt it beat 
True cadence to unconquerable strains ; 
Oh, then may she first wooed from heaven by prayer 
From thy pure lips, and sympathy austere 
With suffering, and the sight of solemn age, 
And thy gray Homer's head, with darkness bound. 
To me descend, more near, as I am far 
Beneath thee, and more need her aiding wing. 

Oh, not again invoked in vain, descend, 
Urania ! and eyes with common light 
More blinded than were his by Heaven's hand 
Imposed to intercept distracting rays. 
Bathe in the vision of transcendent day ; 
And of the human senses (the dark veil 



INVOCATION. 

Before the world of spirit drawn) remove 
The dim material hindrance, and illume ; 
That human thought again may dare behold 
The shape and port of spirits, and once more 
Hear voices in that distant, shadowy world, 
To which ourselves, and this, are shadows, they 
The substance, immaterial essence pure — 
Souls that have freed their slave, and given back 
Its force unto the elements, the dread 
Manes, or the more dread Archetypes of men : 
Like whom in featured reason's shape — like whom 
Created in the mould of God — they fell, 
And, mixed with them in common ruin, made 
One vast and many-realmed world, and shared 
Their deep abodes — their endless exile, some, — 
Some to return to the ethereous light 
When one of human form, a Saviour-Man 
Almighty, not in deity alone, 
But mightier than all angels in the might 
And guard of human innocence preserved. 
Should freely enter their dark empire — these 
To loose, o'er those to triumph ; this the theme. 
The adventure, and the triumph of my song. 



BOOK I. 



BOOK I. 

Came on the starless age of the uncheered 
Dark night, that in the shadow of the earth 
Hid the dead Saviour of the world, and gleamed 
Upon the warrior-watched and virgin tomb 
Which held the mortal of that man foredoomed 
To visit the deep region of the dead. 
And thence to reascend both earth and heaven, 
The first pale day ; and more mean-time the gloom 
Deepened in hell — where, motionless, reclined 
The sad immortals, chief among the powers 
Of earth and air, giants and fallen gods, 
And looked upon each other without word. 
Nor might the grief that bowed supremest shapes, 
Nor the dumb trouble in their eyes, find voice 
3 



26 CHRIST IN HADES. 

While he before them sat who with a word 
Had made them voiceless, and spake not again, 
And looked not up, since when his looked despair 
Had darkened hell, and like a black eclipse 
Covered the hope that was its only day. 

Half to his throne ascended, on the steep 
Sole-touched by his proud feet, as if dethroned 
By his own act, and into ruin fallen 
Self-hurled, sat Aidoneus,^ discrowned, 
With foot upon a broken sceptre set. 
And head stooped forward to his hands, and seemed. 
But for the rising and the slow decline 
Of his wide-lifting shoulders, like one dead. 
And dread his aspect, even to their eyes 
Used to all sights of grandeur and despair, 
All tragic posture and the pomp of woe ; 
Not only for his immemorial state 
Abandoned, and the rightful awe that still 
Sat on his unkinged head and vacant hand. 
But him most capable of grief they deemed 
Whose strength was greatest to endure or dare. 
And deepest his despair whose hope was first. 

So there before him, each upon his throne, 



CHEIST IN HADES. 27 

Sat as if throne and shape were but one stone ; 

And, for that space, more like their idols seemed 

In regions orient, sitting, hushed and dark, 

Within a woody cloister of close palms. 

Or, old with lifeless years, in some forgot, 

Rare-pilgrimed temple, or dim cavern, ranged, — 

Unseen by all the stars. At length to break 

The latent chain that bound the force of limb 

And faculty in each fierce spirit, rose 

Barbarian Baal ; in his depth of shade. 

Save by their gloomy and familiar eyes. 

Not from the dark discerned ; in shape conjoined 

Angel and brute, in temper brute, but strong, 

And third from Satan ; whom with unfixed glance, 

Under low-dropped and sternly neighboring brows. 

He now regarded, as a frenzied beast 

On his still dreaded master rolls his fierce, 

Inconstant orbs. Him, ages now, unfed 

With blood of slaughtered bulls and fragrant smoke, 

Sharp hunger seized, and lion-pangs, to taste 

Again such ofi"erings, and repossess 

The dark and secret land, whence fled of late 

His desperate chief ; not now from the armed voice 



28 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Of his great plaintiff, summoning its bands 

Of vassal evils ; not from thunder piled 

On the crushed air, and titan-lightnings hurled 

From his black solitary heaven, high 

Above all reach ; but from his far-stretched hand 

Disguised as human, and the all-pure force 

Of virtue, clad in human voice and shape. 

Thus hindered of that hope, and chafed, and what 
Was godlike in him fired with shame, to think 
How one by one the ethnic gods had fallen, 
Disarmed, before the constant powers of heaven, 
Met in the battle-region of the earth — 
How many forced by slight antagonists. 
Of puny frame and seeming, from their old 
Usurped domain, — himself, on Carmel's top 
Amid his howling prophets, by a man. 
Defeated, and their prowest, in the wide 
And wild arena where he met the last 
And wondrous apparition marked with signs 
Of Heaven and hostile purpose ; — by such scorns 
Panged and enraged, and long made pale with hate 
Of gods terrestrial-born, but equal made 
With the celestial, and to like domain 



CHRIST IN HADES. 29 

By Satan raised — the mighty bulk stood up, 
Strong but irresolute, and sought to throw 
The weight of that stern presence from his soul, 
And from its ward unlock imprisoned sound. 

But scarce they heard the first hoarse breath, that died 
Ere his dumb lips had shaped it to a word 
Of any import, when throughout the throng 
They stirred, and grasped their arms, as if some ill, 
Long pondered and expected, from the heights 
Of ether suddenly had fallen ; he. 
Around and upward, looked with listening stare ; 
Then, like a cloud arming in heaven, grew 
More black and dreadful, and his giant peers, 
With copied brow, frowned back dread sympathy, 
Published revolt and general discontent : 
Yet unprepared they heard, when words like these, 
Forth poured like shaped, articulate thunder, shook 
The wide Infern, that from its shadowy sides, 
Of deepest region, ruined back the sound, 
As when one shouts within a hollow cave. 

" Abjects — once gods ! befits it now that he. 
Sole cause of this despair, and for whose sake 
We suffer, that his pride may play at Jove,* 



30 CHRIST IN HADES. 

God of this subterraneous world — with us, 
His toys, for subjects — should here sit infirm, 
Like his Memnonian image, blind and deaf 
To evils that can add to grief that seemed, 
Ere this, at greatest, and where all was lost 
Bring ruin, and make woe in hell ? 'Tis fit, 
And time, methinks some monarch should ascend 
The abdicated throne, which he perchance 
Leaves to his recent victor, hitherward 
Pursuing him, with unfamiliar feet 
In the blind access hindered, if aright 
The babbling lips of oracle have told 
Of such a one's descent to these abodes." 

He paused, checked by no voice, by none assured 
As when a ship, that on the world's great sides 
Climbs the wave-ribbed Pacific, 'gainst the weight 
Of tempests from the skiey Andes pressed 
Upon the barriered continent of air, 
Resistless back, and leaning on the sea. 
Is hit by thunder, and intestine fire 
Breaks forth, and lights the inexorable face 
Of her wild doom ; the stark, bewildered crew 
Grive her to wind and sea, and as she swings, 



CHRIST IN HADKS. 31 

Helmless, from wave to wave, with crashing spars, 
Sit idle, — so sat these who manned the torn 
And struggling wreck of heaven, in this abyss 
Storm-tossed ; so startled, yet infirmly sad 
With such surmises as could make gods pale : — 
When Satan reared his head, on which no crown 
Might plainer have writ king, nor horrent plumes 
Shadowed more terror : His immane right hand, 
Armed with a gesture of supreme command, 
Rose with deific grace to herald speech, 
Then, from changed purpose or disdain of words, 
Convulsively reached forth, and, as it seemed, 
Grasped at the shade of an imagined power 
To wield the elemental arms that hung 
Gleaming and tremulous in the storm-lit air ; 
And muttered thunder bayed the ear : At once 
A thousand hands upon the broad defence 
Tightened their grasp, and half uprose the throng, 
Or in their places stirred with ringing sound, 
Like the faint threat of war : But Baal, prompt 
To seize the imperial moment that controls 
The after time, though not without some sign 
Of effort in his mien, wrenched forth these words. 



32 CHRIST IN HADES. 

" Think not, twice-conquered, from thy sovran place 
To awe us with a look, who see crowned Fate 
Frown from a greater height on thee and us — 
Thee quelled — and us, who far above all fear 
Raised, as below all hope dejected, dare 
The eternal Tyrant : the malignant star 
Of thy dominion rose before our eyes. 
Within our own horizon rose, and burned, 
And fell toward the darkness, and, like thee, 
A creature of the finite time — finds here 
Its temporal limit and for ever sets. 
Thy strength we know is great, but equals not 
The combined strength it governs, the great force 
And title of so many worshipped gods ; 
Which, if it be that might is proof of right. 
May rightly govern thee, and henceforth shall. 

No answer Heaven's great traverser returned 
To these bold taunts, though loud, he marked them not, 
Nor heard ; as showed his sinking head and arm, 
And all his gestureless bowed form, collapsed, 
As from a blow by an invisible hand. 
And the infernal tribune poured amain 
His turbulent speech, with words that swept like storms 



C 11 R I S T I N H A D E S . 33 

Across the souls, celestial still, though fallen, 

Of those high-thoughted gloomy deities ; — 

Words of just right and freedom, tyranny 

And usurpation, lore their king himself 

And tyrant taught them, when of old it served 

'Gainst the All-Ruler : Nor did he forget, 

But with the music of some sadness now 

In his harsh tones, subdued, and smoothed, to speak 

Of hoped deliverance, and the Babel-dreams 

With which high-building fancy whiled their pain, 

As of things real, merged in this despair, 

And whelmed in this last ruin whose full wave 

Broke high above them ; and with wilful grief, 

Over their drowned magnificence his soul 

Still wandered and lamented, as the sea 

Wails through a city sunk with all its towers. 

Nor spared his insolence the highest names 
To whom heroic deeds had given praise 
Among earth's deities, and so place in hell ; 
Or those for fortitude as high advanced 
By its great regent ; Cain and Nimrod first, 
Alcides, Theseus, Orion, blind 
Bellerophontes, and the names, long since 



34 CHRIST IN FIADES. 

Dead to the human ear, of Anakim, 
Titan, and Demigod, the infant words 
Of fame, forgotten in her age, but here 
Retained, and honored as became the great 
And first-born offspring of the virgin earth. 
The giant nurslings of her mighty youth. 

" Easy for you," he said, with voice and look 
As when the aerial storm-maned lion roars 
Against the earth, and glares upon the doomed, — 
" Easy for you to king and lord it here, 
High-seated 'mid the tyrannies of hell, 
Who know no greater state, nor ever felt 
Contrast of hell and heaven, nor proved his might 
Whose lightning strikes high tops, but such as ye 
Leaves safe in weakness, fable what they may 
Of wars on Jove. No dizzy height ye fell. 
From climbed Olympus or towered Babel hurled, 
Here in these depths to find far higher place 
Than, though presumptuous, your low thoughts aspired 
Above the cloud-spread air ; whose blackness scared, 
And casual fire — not frighted Jove — deterred 
Wingless invaders, heavenward, step by step, 
Ascending ; know, proud reptiles, mated ill 



CHRIST IN HADES. 35 

With children of the air, that from this hour 
We recognize no monarch but our fate, — 
No peers but are our equals, thus at first 
Created, or approved by might." He ceased, 
And bis defiant foot and planted spear 
Brought up an echo from the heart of hell. 

Astarte, then, whose anger, scarce restrained 
To hear these words from her Sidonian mate, 
Burned like the glow of fire through binding smoke, 
Blazed upward suddenly, and all her moons 
And deep tiaras of stars flashed rosy ire, 
Virgin disdain tempered with grief divine. 
Like her own planet rising in the east. 
So large and fair the beauteous giant stood, 
To them who gazed, more lovely for her wrath. 
To none was she unknown, to angels there 
A woman-angel, from her faith seduced 
By bright Abaddon, and to them of earth 
Regent of mooned skies ; but in the west(') 
The elect infernal queen, to whom far-strayed 
In Nysa's flowery field, from out the earth, 
Naked and grisly, came the king of night. 
And shamed the modest day of her fair eyes, 



36 CHRIST IN HADES. 

And cliased the clear Aurora from her cheeks, 
Displaced with evening red, and dewy tears. 
And thus she spake, with voice as when at night 
One hears afar the instant birth of sound 
In brazen tubes melodious, mixed with touch 
Of stringed sympathies, that with their tide 
Of human feeling fill the hollow air, 
Up to the dreaming moon, that stoops to hear. 

" More than defeat, oh worse than this despair ! 
Oh shame, twice shamed with worse defeat, that thou, 
An ancient god, his fated feodary, 
Who knew him in his greatness, when we all 
Could not perceive in what he seemed, who took 
The star-bright name of Lucifer, less great 
Than stern Jehovah, or in what his state 
Shone less magnificent, — that one who sat 
High-throned beneath his feet, supremely placed, 
And him adored, his creature, he thy God, 
His pliant hand, his foot, his smile, his frown, 
His friend, and favorite, till ruin came 
Like night upon his radiance, and he fell — 
A falling sun that after him drew down. 
What could he less ? his firmament of stars, 



CHRIST IN II ADE3. 37 

And left mid-heaven dark an equal space, 

Here in this cavern with his troubled light 

To glorify perdition ; oh worse fall, 

And death to our divinity ! — that they 

Should faithful stand who only know him fallen, 

And thou shouldst be the first, while thus he sits, 

His soul striving its death, to launch these shafts. 

Making the wounds trenched by the bolts of Heaven 

The mark of thy more dire though feeble aim. 

What did I hear thee urge, deedless declaimer, 

Against his faith and conduct, from the hopes 

Fallen in his defeat ? Who gave us hope 

Whereon to build these hopes that we lament ? 

Who gave us from this den unhoped reprieve ? 

Gave yonder flowery world and sapphire sky 

In the celestial ether, and, to soothe 

This pain, gifts, incense, ritual dance and song, 

With clashing cymbals jubilant, awed looks 

And smiles and supplicating tears ? Who raised 

Our prostrate deity, in this abyss 

Half-buried in its ruins, where it lay 

Spurned by the brute and unintelligent 

Wild powers of nature, storm, and flaming fire, 



38 CHRIST IN HADES. 

And loud, insulting thunder, — its whole force. 
And almost life, extinguished, and its light 
Nigh trodden out by darkness, — who restored, 
Reared, and enthroned it on the heart of man ? 
And thou, who gave thee thy high-altared hills 
And woody temples ? whose pale rites my soul 
Not more abhorred, above the cedarn tops 
Of Syria gliding nightly, than to hear 
These blasphemies that more pollute thy lips. 
And what though from green fields and azure air, 
In that fair heaven of our exile, sent ; 
Thou for thy vulturous thirst indeed long since, 
And we by this defeat ? What can be said 
But that our enemy, and his, is God, 
The eternal elder of all spirits, sire 
Of all control and power, over all 
High head omnipotent ; with whom he now 
Strives inwardly, and not with such as thou. 
Nor thy reproaches feels, nor hears these words 
I speak in his defence, who little thought 
He ever would need word from any tongue !" 

Thus spake the queen of night, nor deigned to know 
If well or ill regarded were her words ; 



CHRISTIN HADES. 39 

iBut as when Judah's daughters mourned defeat 

And desolation from the foe, she shook 

The cloud of her dark tresses to her feet, 

And sat beneath them, like a veil ; dark, vast, 

And stone-like motionless, like the great shape 

Of their despair and grief before them set. 

By the wan star above her stooping head 

Silvered with light. Then high-placed Cain stood up, 

A king in semblance, but whose head superb, 

Gray with the downfall of afflicting years, 

Suborned no greatness of its golden tire ; 

Nor among kings less than the jBrst might seem, 

Nor less than equal among angels stood 

Hell's human premier, pale and sternly fair, 

Of arch-angelic stature, like a god. 

For spirit freed from bodily restraint. 

Forced circumscription, if in essence great, 

Of its true greatness then puts on the form : 

If feeble and irresolute, though of bulk 

Typhoean, adequate shape assumes, 

Lopped of its huge proportions : And thus spake 

The Homicide, whose hand first gave to death 

The taste of blood ; the lion of that pit 



40 CHRIST IN HACES^ 

Where fallen be lay, unhumbled fierce and loud^ 
The first and eldest of his race in hell, 
And by its older spirits, though heaven-born, 
Feared for a youth accursed above their age. 

" Princes, since I, it seems, must prove my right 
To call you peers, I stand not here to speak 
In his defence who needs none, and whose soul 
Would deem such words dishonor, did he hear. 
But this I say, that of necessity 
Ye fell with him, who fell ; his satellites ; 
Who, had ye then been left, as now ye would, 
In that metropolis of all worlds, (by me 
Unseen and undesired,) without your head, 
Had fallen to ruins, and been darker left 
In heaven, deprived his light, than in deep helL 
Fatal dependency, and if unjust, 
Let Fate be blamed, not him : But I, who stood 
Probationary heir to those bright seats 
Whence ye were hurled, I, of free will, joined cause 
With you against your tyrant, and alone 
Among you came, not with these scoffings hailed, 
The first ally of your new founded state ; 
Nor heard their omen in the infinite cry 



C II R I S T I N II A D E S . 41 

That killed the silence when your monarch gave 
To this red hand, with that permissive shout. 
Hell's second sceptre, as by natural right 
King of the new-confederated race." 

Thus far, he spake with low but rising sound, 
As when, uprousing in his shadowy lair, 
The storm-hound of the north begins to bay, — 
Thenceforth, — as when into the sky he pours 
From his distended breast prolonged stern tones. 
And, leaping forth, breaks through the crashing pines 
With one wide roar, that swallows up the air. 

" Baal, thy airy vaunt of ancient state. 
That overtops our new-raised deity. 
Must be perforce the scorn of him who deems 
Lost honors a disgrace, and sees not yet 
What glory comes of station forfeited. 
And while retained, ingloriously held 
By sufferance, not by might : Not to be great. 
Hear it ye pining factions twice the slaves 
Of Him ye hate, slaves of his power — and pride. 
And Thou, great egotist of heaven, pleased 
With fair-shaped breath of muses that accord 
Praise to demands for praise — not to be great 



42 CHRIST IN HADES. 

I deem it, in tlie summits of the world 

To sit with worshippers in loud-hymned state, 

Pomp blazing back on pomp, and voice to voice, 

In swelled antiphony and chorus bland, 

Returning echo up the wearied air : 

Nor is it from an armed hand of cloud 

To cast the thunder-dai'kness that dismays 

Affronting men, nor to their dreadful aim 

To guide the whirlwinds that upkindle here 

These black and smoke-enveloped lakes to flame : 

This to be strong and greatly cruel — that 

Is to be weakly glorious ; — to be great. 

Lies in the soul that on itself retires 

For strength ; this, serviles ! I deem great. 

Not to possess, but to contend with force ; 

By strength of will to dispossess our Hate 

Of his chance sovereignty, who, spite his boast, 

Is not almighty while the will defies. 

And heart dethrones him. Be it yours to wage. 

Who know no victory but success in arms 

Or treachery, base quarrel with your chief: 

I will assume the war ; this arm shall lead 

The earth's divinities, when Fate permits, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 43 

'G-ainst your victorious kindred of the air, 
By you more dreaded than ere you by men ; — 
But first, untimely scofi"er, mean to prove 
That other stroke than Michael's can smite down 
Thy vain pretensions, who, with all thy host. 
In second rout, hurled down these yawning gulfs 
May find a greater depth than hell from heaven." 

He ceased, and with a sound as of the sea. 
When some fierce wind that in the tropic sky 
Hung black and dreadful, from its continent loosed, 
Roars down upon the flood, the throng uprose ; 
And sea-like swayed unto its outmost verge 
His audience, as the stormy impulse rolled 
Onward, beyond his ken, its helmed waves. 
Up thundering far and wide, with crash of arms, 
And spray of flashing spears, and plumy foam. 
And far beyond his voice, as, where the wind 
As yet fills not the air, wave urges wave — 
Thousands on thousands rose in glimmering ranks, 
Apparent through the gloom : At once, the broad 
And rival standards of the earth and heaven. 
This azure and that emerald, unfurled, 
And opening, shadowed battle on the air, 



44 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Filled with armorial horrors, as beneath 
Stood the deep space replete with armed shape ; 
Then, soon, diverse, like clouds athwart the sky 
Diversely driven, moved to form the war : 
Whose dawn in their display the hosts beheld. 
And, as when swift Achilles cleft the power 
Of Ilion betwixt Xanthus and the gate. 
They parted ; these with Baal to the south, 
Those north with Cain : But Satan where he sat 
Like a huge tower half sunk upon its height, 
Eose not, nor stirred, and starred Astarte there 
Sat motionless before him in her light. 



BOOK II. 



BOOK II. 

In the same world, of demons and damned men 

The endless-fixed abode, the same deep world 

Of pale, unbreathing realms, but in a clime 

Where horror became awe, and darkness shade. 

Lay Paradise ; ^ divided from the dark 

And punished region by a gulf, so wide 

That scarce a level arrow, launched across 

By stronger than a mortal archer's arm, 

Would plumb the centre ; and so deep, the thought, 

Though swift and patient, that should track its flight, 

Must deem the abysm's bed had stayed at last 

The fast descending arrow — falling still. 

And here, as on the gulfs Tartarean shore. 

Of wild and abrupt aspect was the soil, 



48 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Shaped by creation's storin, and unadorned 

By the six artist days of after calm ; 

But full of wilful grandeur, and rich gleams 

In rocks of carbuncle and all ores, and like 

The floor of heaven in rough gold unwrought. 

And idle wealth ; and for a living realm. 

In this bright desert set, as in the sun, 

And like a dim and vast oasis, stood 

The Paradise of God ; of earthly saints, 

Born ere their Saviour, — till that Saviour's arm 

Should break its shadowy door and make them free,- 

The sad Elysium.^ Still the place as sleep, 

And as dreams — beautiful ; along the plains. 

Swept by no wind and withered by no star, 

With fixed, wan shadow, stirless aspens stood. 

Dark myrtles, and gaunt poplars still and pale, 

With cypress mixed : and many a frowning brow 

And melancholy look in crag and steep, 

Was smoothed by climbing vines and flowery weeds 

That built themselves on high, with all their gay 

Thick-tangled blooms, and on the barren rock 

Hung odors ; soft and subtle next to heaven 

The clime, and, fit for spiritual breathing, pure : 



CHRIST IN HADES. 49 

Nor did it want some glimmerings like day, 

But oh ! how different from the dewy clear 

Of open heaven ; nor could it want, if fair, 

The mirror, that by hand-clasped mountains raised, 

Or set in emerald vales, earth's sceneries hold 

To their own beauties ; from the hills around. 

Browed with black firs and cedars, with thick boughs, 

That mingled with the darkness cast from peaks 

O'er peaks uprising in the skyless air, 

A thousand sinuous or precipitous streams 

Lapsed with dim-heard decadence, and from sight 

Fled, in devouring clefts, or slept in pools. 

That deep within their bosom, held a dream 

Of rocks and falling streams and prospects still. 

Nor did the place adornment lack from art 
Of towers and temples, that a rugged clime. 
Of hilly aspects, best befits for show. 
For the pale meditative shades that here 
Waited release to heaven, had not forgot 
The beautifying skill of men, nor lost 
The nature that impels them to indue 
The nobler moods and unessential forms 
Of spirit with material ornament 
3 



'0 CHRIST IN HADES. 

And visible being, — giving thus to sense, 

And so by sensuous reflection to itself, 

The pure immortal part. And hence as where 

A stranger, in the opening flower of day, 

Approaching far ^gina on the sea, 

Or Corinth o'er the isthmus, sees in air 

The snowy edifice of temples old. 

That sleep upon the hills, like clouds of Jove, 

And paint the fronted sky, but which the sun 

Dispels not, to his wonder, — here the hills 

At every spot of vantage, bore on high 

Fanes with white statues set in shining frieze 

And spacious pediment: such shapes as seemed, — 

So airy light they stood, or large reclined, — 

As they had down descended on the vast 

Columnar pedestal, rising from beneath 

To meet and give fit resting-place to gods : 

And, though but human, not less grand the groups 

That all the famed heroic story told 

Of Jephtha and of Sampson, regal Saul, 

And David, sweeter Orpheus than harped 

At hell's deep portals, with prolonged, wild sound, 

Down the abysses wailing on the ear 



CHRIST IN HADES. 61 

Of the infernal Fate ; but this, inspired, 
Sang at the gates of heaven, and his strain 
Bade the eternal doors of glory move. 

Upon a height by that dividing gulf 
Once measured by the eye of Dives, fixed 
On the cool extreme, — to the abhorred abyss 
More near than the blest people used to roam, 
Sat Adam, doomed; sad penance self-imposed, 
His offspring to behold, who fell from earth, 
Struck with mortality for his sake, like leaves 
Cut by the noiseless frost from some full tree, 
In yellow autumn. None escaped his sight. 
Of them, who from the region of the day 
Alighting, brightened the Elysian peaks, 
Or those, more numerous, who, along the brink 
That shored eternal night, discerned, afar. 
Like dusky shadows driven athwart the clear, 
Into the darkness fell, unnoised how deep. 

This without grief his nature might not bear, 
Though nerved to patience by the strength sublime 
Which he who views his crime with steadfast eye, 
Finds in the stern regard. What could he seem. 
Although but shade by grief more dimmed with shade, 



52 CHRIST IN HADES. 

But sire and head of an immortal line ? 

And now there was a splendor in his look, 

And conscious strength in his large-limbed repose, 

As in a man whom destiny inspires 

To assume in soul the greatness which her hands 

Invisibly prepare ; or as they feign 

Of the swart Brahmin, who beneath the sun 

Sits without time or change, till death thinks scorn 

To touch his withered life, — his penance done, 

His eyes grow terrible with light, his limbs 

Put on their youth, and his impatient feet 

Already feel the steps of Indra's throne. 

Eve on his right hand sat, with head declined. 

From recollected shame, or weaker mind 

Than to endure, with Adam, sight more sad 

Than haunts the wide and ever frighted eyes 

Of Niobe, for tears compassioned into stone ; 

And opposite reclined his second born, 

First wept, and Moses at his feet, with fixed 

Unalterable brow and eye severe ; 

And in his hands the tables of the law. 

These solitary sat, and lower stood 

Gray seers, and warriors, in old times revered. 



C H R I S T 1 N HADES 53 

For here came not the general crowd, though free, 

Familiarly, nor lightly dared obtrude, 

Nor but with awe approach the unborn man. 

But now intenser awe pervaded all. 
For Adam's voice upon their wonder foil, 
With shadowy, but so vast and solemn sound. 
That silence not displaced but deeper seemed 
In the deep listening of the dead around — 
As thus the Sire to Abel — " Whence, oh son, 
Was that sad look, the unforgotten sight 
Of death, in thee first given to my eyes. 
Again upon thy face, and in thy limbs. 
But chased by smiles more bright than that was dark. 
And such a glory in thine eyes and brow 
That scarce I knew thee ? So on earth the sun. 
When first I saw him darkened by a cloud. 
And thought him gone for ever, — like some grand, 
High fronted, glorious angel sometimes seen 
In-looking on our bower, then seen no more, — 
Bursting again imprisoning cold or dark, 
Rolled from his vapory cave, like noon on night." 

" Adam and Sire," the favorite replied, 
" Unconsciously thy speech has touched the cause : 



54 CHRI3T IN HADES 

For to my eyes methought the sun appeared, 
As often to my thoughts, a golden round, 
That turned too soon its darker side to earth ; 
Or by the intervention of a shade 
Stood ruined of its splendor : as it seemed 
To my last-looking glance when sudden death 
Fell on these darkened eyes, and like a blow 
Bore me to earth, unstayed by foot or hand. 
Nay, Adam, thou and Eve, — why does that look 
Still haunt your downcast eyes at words like these . 
As if I only of my kind had died ? 
And soon a flight of angels I descried. 
Together driving, in that dim eclipse, 
From the four sides of heaven, so thick as yet 
Came never, in an orb of cloudy wings, 
Hitherward wafting the insphered souls of saints. 
And that way looking whither they all held 
Their mid-air voyage, I perceived at length 
Why utmost heaven, through its golden ports, 
Emptied itself of glory, and its state 
Dissolved ; while powers pre-eminent, confused 
With meaner angels, filled the inferior sphere. 
For Him, oh Adam ! who on earth oft came 



CHRIST IN HADES. 55 

As from no higlier power, and spake mild words 

But awful, which we spake not and yet knew ; — 

Him I beheld, uplifted in the air. 

Upon a bleeding tree that struck no root 

Into the earth, but by the evil hands 

Seemed fixed, which on a branch transverse had stretched 

Him bound and naked, who still seemed, though worn. 

By mortal-haunting sorrow and great pain. 

To the gaunt spectacle and hue of death. 

The same we called Jehovah, and no less — 

To me a wonder — than Almighty Grod. 

And, as I looked, it lifted up its head 

And cried, so loud as never thou and Eve 

Made lamentation erst in Gihon's vale, 

On the returning day of sin and doom. 

And darkness fell upon me with the sound, 

And mortal fear. — But when unclosed my eyes. 

To utter dark near wounded by that sight. 

With orb restored, the like aflfronted sun 

Stood large and glorious ; and methought I knew 

Havilah's cedarn shade, but dreamy dark 

It fell around ; and on an altar near 

A lamb sent up its snowy wreath to heaven." 



56 C H R I S T 1 N II A D E S . 

Here stood awhile the stream of strange discourse : 
But none with stir or speech the wonder loosed, 
Mute in all tongues and fixed in all their eyes ; 
But wider browed, intelligent, and intent 
Beyond all picture, in the aspect old 
Of bards and prophets and the mighty shades 
Contemplative, that sat before the mount, 
Themselves like hills unmoved. But now their heads, 
Each head marked regal by the silver crown 
Of millenary years, great Elders leaned 
Involuntary forward, and their harps 
Touched with preludings to intended song ; 
As when a breeze breaks from its crystal cave 
In the all-tranquil air, and at deep noon 
Sweeps through a grove on momentary wings. 

But soon the silent seer from revery raised 
His eyes, re-lumined with the vision's close, 
Most difficult in memory for thought 
To unperplex ; where wake begins with sleep 
To mingle rays, as oft the sun and moon 
Shine in the uncertain dawu : and thus resumed. 

" Then in the sun where, beamless, in the air 
With sacrificial vapor filled, it stood, 



CHUIST IN HADES. 57 

I of a human shape became aware, 
That me more glorious seemed ; my bright 
Celestial counterpart ; that nearer came 
Until the sun its circle wide enlarged 
Around us both, and me invested fair, 
Within its rosy atmosphere, with bloom 
And splendor like the other, more and more 
Transfiguring to his brightness all of earth 
And gloom that lingered with me, till — too near 
Or bright — I lost the image, and awaked 
Here in this dusky light to see you sit 
Familiar as before, with sunless looks." 

Here ceased, but not in silence ended, that 
Which to their shadowy senses seemed a sound : 
As when one instrument, to tell its tale 
Of wondrous motions in a human spirit, 
Sounds in an orchestra, and all the throng. 
In solemn trance, like lively sculpture sit 
With open eyes, and mark not what they see, 
Or through its unapparent forms look out 
Into the world from which these sounds are sent — 
Or with closed orbs, but sight attentive still 
And subtly present in the hearing sense, — 
3« 



58 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Then, like immediate thunder heard, at once 
From the long calm of all the powers of sound, 
That slumbered in the banded tubes of brass, 
The sea of music breaks, with wave on wave, 
Rolled high, and driven by the storm of soul 
Forth poured in human breath ; — like swimmers they 
Amid the sounding billows sink and gasp ; — 
So on the voice of Abel when it ceased, 
A thousand voices burst the gates of song, 
And on a thousand and ten thousand souls 
Of the redeemed, through all that region deep, 
Poured like a wind upon the sea. The sound 
Even to the Earth went up ; from voice and hand 
Rushed mingled song and strain, like fire and flame. 
And heard again were Israel's solemn strings 
And Judah's singers, and the alien harps 
That on the willows hung by Ulai's banks, 
Voiceless above the murmuring stream. And Thou, 
Celestial Light ! thy praises filled the ear, 
Abysmal, of immeasurable night. 
Sun of all stars, star of all heavens, Thou 
Wast by their song adored — resplendent Word, 
'• Let there be light !"— and Thou, creative Hand, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 59 

That on its flying beams the image laid 

Of all the flaming world ; tremendous Power, 

That gather'dst in thy wide-exploring grasp 

The dark, difi"used materials, and framed 

The earth, and reared it ; by thy mystic skill 

Untaught, and force omnipotent, it rose 

From gloomy waste, and bore the mountains up. 

And hung their peaks in heaven ; — Hand of might, 

Wisdom, and mastery, that pour'dst the sea 

Around the earth, the air around the sea, 

And light round all ; that weavedst the blue sky 

Throughout the starry space, and held'st the entire 

And rounded universe like an ornament 

Before the infinite Reason's raptured Eye — 

Thee glorious in day and night they hymned, 

■In hell and heaven ; but Thou, of human spirit 

And reason the light, redeemer of the soul 

From darkness of worse night, eternal Word, 

Begot without beginning, without end 

Existing, thee, as the Messiah, sung, 

As Saviour far more glorified. And break. 

Thus rose the invocation of All Saints, 

Break wide, bright Word, upon these sunless realms, 



60 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Prime fiat of creation, Word of power ; 
Light of all vision, glory of the light, 
Lightning of glory ! and on us whose eyes 
Turn ever on the darkness a blind prayer, 
On us, who, sunk below the living world, 
See not earth, ocean, air, nor the vast wheel 
Of heaven, swift-turning with all-circling flame — 
On us, thou, milder than the lunar dawn ! 
Thou, brighter than the towering orb of day ! 
Sun of all suns and worlds, beyond the reach 
Of night and earthly shadows, riding high 
Above all heavens in eternal noon, 
Descend — or to our eyes transmit thy beam. 

Scarce yet the strain could from its echoes deep, 
With fourfold repetition from all sides 
Of the wide subterranean cavern beat 
In higher concord implicate, be told. 
When from above they heard a louder strain 
Responsive ; and immediate light afar, 
As from the disk of an appearing sun 
In their dark sphere, shone o'er them, and in gold 
Clad all that stood thereunder, gloriously 
Revealing the assembly on the mount. 



CHRIST IN HADES. 61 

The splendor on tlieir upturned faces fell, 
And shone in each, as when the morning beams. 
From the high east, number the ocean sands. 
Yet blinded not, so clear and soft it fell. 
And like a cloud of light, athwart the deep 
And painful gloom : And distant, in the midst, 
Girt by an orb of seraphs — on the immense 
Circumference hovering, each with pinions twain 
Erect, twain prone, and twain that clasped the air, 
And spreading sunny locks o'er-streamed with gold 
From open heaven — stood a shape like man. 
With bleeding hands and feet, but joyful mien ; 
Wan, but with recent triumph in his look, 
And calm, as one with victory not elate :^ 
And through the central glory drawn transverse, 
As if upon his shoulders borne whose death 
Redeemed its shame, behold the accursed beam, 
Intelligible to their wonder through the dream 
Of Abel, soon confirmed. Not swift the sphere 
Descended ; like a hovering cloud it came, 
Toward them compelled, as if descent, opposed 
To its unprompted motion, and against 
The upbuoyant strains from all sides blown beneath 



62 CHRIST IN HADES. 

By trumping angels, were more difficult 
Than, from the instant impulse, to obey 
The stress of harmony, and mount to heaven. 

At length it rested, like a radiant crown, 
On that sole awful peak, where sat apart 
The Sire of men ; who to their Saviour rose, 
And for a space the First and Second Man 
Confronted stood, each father, and each son ; 
The heavenly Father and his earthly Son, 
The earthly Father and his Seed divine ; 
And Moses rose, his head unantlered now 
Of the bright beams that made it dreadful, quenched 
Before their brighter far ; and from his hands, 
Not passionate as once, with solemn act, 
Cast down and brake the tables at his feet. 
Then patriarch and prophet bowed at once. 
Nor thought it shame that their large fronts sublime 
Should touch the ground ; and Abel bowed, and Eve 
Clasping his feet, and all the multitude 
Toward the transfigured mountain where he stood, 
As on that Galilean hill beheld 
In raiment clear, (yet rather, on this peak. 
He glorified Calvary and the tree of shame,) 



CHRIST IN HADES. 63 

Throughout the utmost region, bowed the head, 
Bending one way like plants before the wind. 

And oh ! hereafter, thou whom this dark strain 
Scarce dares to mention, for the deeper awe 
That sinks its numbers, may my soul indeed 
Join in that worship that it renders now 
With visionary effort, or, more blest, 
With tears, behold thee, though afar, in heaven. 



BOOK III. 



BOOK III. 

Back into Tartarus from that bright peak 
Resting celestial feet, and made the immense 
High pedestal of a god indeed, my muse 
Compels the wing ; intent to sing, and me, 
Her earnest listener, teach the fiery war 
Of those intractable despairing spirits, 
Demoniac and human, blown into a heat 
And sevenfold rage of fire, that made the hell 
"Which outward burned and flamed against the shore 
Of their assaulted being, a septentrion sea 
O'er-glassed with cold in winter's dark extreme. 
Now like as day, struck with the mortal dint 
Of cold and gloom, when rises from the earth 
Black night, floods out his glorious life, and stains 
With flaming or and gules the argent field 



68 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Wherein, upon his sinking orb, he leans 

In haggard splendor, and, athwart the world. 

Throws back his naighty image on the east, • 

And makes it seem two suns or set or rise, — 

So with a sicklied glory from the blaze 

Of martial pomp the region shone, — appeared 

Like these the hosts opposed, as far apart. 

In radiant gold and brass and pallid steel, 

Glimmering athwart the intervening gloom 

In either side of hell ; but not like these 

They faded, leaving night : in order set 

For battle, and in thought prepared as erst 

In will, at once with caution armed and rage, 

Their mutual motions and swift steps o'ercame 

The interval of darkness deep with space. 

Till now into each other's gleam they fell. 

Contiguous ; though from each other still 

So far remote in space as from the east 

To the west cape, that shut the Atlantic gulf; 

Then swifter rushed to meet, and swift, behind. 

Wide-following darkness like a storm came down. 

And high above them, in the air disturbed 

By moving armaments, grim lightnings broke 



CHRIST IN HADES. 69 

In wavering lines, and seamed the opaque far dark 
With rivers of fire, and hairy meteors streamed 
Along the immense, or in the skyless height 
Wheeled, and around them with swift motion wrapped 
Vast lengths of sounding flame ; or bursting shone 
Like shattered suns, and either army dazed 
And far-illumined ; nor beneath their feet 
Less glowed the iron path, and frequent flamed 
The smouldering base under their dread advance. 

So many warrior-shapes then moved beneath 
As never on the surface roused at peal 
Of clarion, or in cadence beat the ground 
To the loud hand of war upon the drum, 
Or pale lips pressed upon the thrilling reed. 
When moving nations armed flashed back the sun : 
Nor had it been a field so full, or vast, 
Though of all fields and battles were made one, 
So thick the clime-bronzed race of demons swarmed, 
So numerous the fairer flock of men ; 
The field so spacious that they trod, who not 
For burning sea, or torrent rolling fire 
Under its cloud-white veil, or vacuous gulf. 
Or marsh of pale-spread flames, made turn or stay. 



70 CHRIST IN HADES. 

So on they came, revealing and revealed, 
And imminent with light, in what it showed, 
More dreadful than the deep accustomed gloom 
That partially concealed them each from each. 
Nor were they undismayed, but high-enraged 
Above a doubt of the event, they strode 
With undiminished steps the lessening space : 
Black and precipitous battle on each brow 
Hung threatening ; and each eye with victory blazed, 
And saw the foe already by their feet 
Down-trodden. First, and far-seen, Baal loomed, 
Swift-nearing, like the highest peak of lands 
Half hid in mists, that moving seems to one 
Whirled by it on the sea at morning-tide. 
Asmod the right, and Ammon led the left. 
The orient Jove though this usurped the name, 
Nor less that G-recian god. To these opposed. 
Towered adamantine Cain, both doomed and writ 
Unconquered in his brow sedate and stern ; 
Naked as erst on earth, and yet than none 
Less terrible, and armed with that dire plant, 
Torn by the gnarled roots, whose stroke accursed 
First burst the gates of war. Upon his right 



CHRIST IN HADES. 71 

Athenian Theseus marched, nor other seemed 
Than when at Marathon his mighty shade 
Paced giant-like before the patriot Greek s 
Awe-thrilled and joyful, and his armed foot 
Broke through the Asian line. In look like Cain, 
Alcides stalked upon the foremost left, 
Thus naked and without armor, better armed 
With strength and courage ; the Nemean's hide 
Thrown idly backward, showed his queller's hand 
Laid on its knotty engine, with a mien 
Lightly secure. On each part they appeared 
As once in earth they did or ether ; these 
Like themselves, — those like the hero-gods, 
They were or imitated there ; but all, 
Although in look still human and distinct. 
Of spiritual stature, and with arms 
Proportioned ; like hill-crowning cedars waved 
Their plumy helms, and, at each forward step, 
Shook nodding ruin down and dark defeat. 
The other side, supreme, as they who feel 
Superior worth innate, or time-faced right. 
Meet rebels, with superb presumption came, 
And port omnipotent ; by which dismayed 



73 CHRIST IN HADES. 

And awe-struck as it seemed, the adverse front, 
When now so near the tread of each to each 
Like echoes came, made halt, and through their lines, 
Suddenly retrograde, disorder fell. 

Then Baal, prompt to scoff, made hoarse the air 
With triumphings like these : " Warriors in peace, 
Peaceful in war ! not overweeningly ye scorn 
I see, and see in time for peace, wise thoughts 
To entertain, though late ; better resolved, 
Doubt not. ye mockeries of our state, ye mimes 
And shadows of our grandeur, jjigmies swelled 
And puffed beyond proportion — 'better willed 
You seem in act to fly, than when, too bold. 
You thought to meet the substance of your shade. 
And try what strength might lie in real gods. 
But thou, first parasite of hell, remain. 
And fly not, as becomes their leader, first, — 
That in the rear of rout this arm may reach 
To drag thee by the false-crowned head reverse, 
And strangle thy new godhead in my gripe." 

Wide-eyed retort with lightning filled the face 
Of Cain, but thunder from Alcides broke. 
"Weak head and arm, but warlike frown and sound. 



CHRIST IN HADES. 73 

And gesture dread, thee, and thy vaunting mates, 

"What dumb hierophant could doubt divine, 

Since ye sustain so many dire defeats, 

And live, yet only know defeat? And this 

To us you threat, whose fivme has made the stars 

Still shine in our renown, and tell our deeds 

To mortal eyes — such deeds as fill not heaven 

"Without faint glory even in this pit, — 

To me ! — who never knew defeat or shame. 

But mean to add a labor to my twelve. 

And from thy impious mouth tear out that tongue, 

Engine of blasphemy and faction still. 

And to this leonine trophy add the fell 

From thy brute-browed and far less godlike head." 

Thus, pillared Hercules, — and Baal replied. 
But more disturbed, as more like his own boast 
The harsh refrain, shook like a tower, that sapped 
By secret mine, though full of war and means 
Against assault and siege, threats instant fall. 
" Dismay of thieves and brutes ! learn from a god 
Defeat, honored too much should I say shame, 
"Who honor thee to chastise : but know, that loss 
In such a warfare as we waged, I deem 
4 



74 CHRIST IN HADES. 

More great and glorious, than such as thou 
To quell with easy victory, as we shall." 

He ended, and no time for further vaunt, 
Or deeds, when lo — the cause of the delay : 
On right and left, between the open ranks 
Of footmen in deep files withdrawn, afar. 
Through the dispersed smoke, chariots and horse, 
In size and action to the gods they bore 
Not disproportioned, nor unwieldy, showed 
Tremendous through the gloom : of all-pure fire 
Their subtle essence, into shapes like these 
By orient or Argive warriors wrought. 
At the quick hint of ancient use afield. 
For spirit from the bonds of matter freed 
Over the baser substance has more power, 
To mould it into shapes diverse, and life 
Infuse, impulse, and energy divine, 
With swiftest operation of a thought. 

Ere word might fill the pause, upon the foe. 
For such encounter unprepared with like 
Or other means, rushed down the ethereous steeds. 
Winged, swift, far-bounding, thunder-hoofed, and each 
With lightning maned; and from their nostrils wide, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 75 

Breathed pestilence and flame. Themselves in look 

And motion irresistible, 'neath the flight 

They ran of spears and javelins, thrown behind, 

Innumerous, from the chariots, that from far 

Rained wounds and wide confusion on the foe, 

Dismayed and broken ; and the gulfing wheels 

Trenched their deep way through ranks on ranks o'er- 

thrown, 
While in the swarth of their armed axles fell 
Whole groves of legionary spears, like reeds 
Cut by the sickle, but more quickly strowed 
That living meadow by swift reapers mowed. 
And iron harvest — stunned. But not by all 
Was the fierce onset unwithstood : and chief. 
And full of strength and stature, Baal stood. 
As when in some great deluge, bearing trees, 
Ships from their anchors loosed, and fabric huge 
From its foundation raised, with clinging life 
Upon the wreck, and all the human wealth 
Of promontories from the mainland torn — 
Or in the steep flood of Vesuvius poured 
Adown its vine-clad sides — some hill untouched. 
With its green top and plumy forest stands, 



76 CHRIST IN HADES. 

With promise to the world of future life, 

And safety possible to men : — So stood 

The Toparch strong : On whom drove Tubal-Cain, 

Thence Vulcan 'clept, whose hands, upon the forge, 

First shaped the warlike soil to sword and spear, 

And chariots framed, and bade the trumpet neigh, 

And gave a tongue to war. But in the field. 

Too late, the fear of his great baron smote 

The armed mechanic : by one impulse swayed, 

The conscious coursers swerved, and where the head, 

From the strong spine, stooped o'er his guiding hand, 

A blow from Baal's sequent blade, reversed. 

And sheer descending, fell ; and into wreck 

Sunk his wheeled pomp, together fiery horse 

And chariot into smoking ruins fade. 

But him Alcides met, as through the field 
He sought whatever had withstood the shock 
Of hippogriflF, and centaur, and armed wheel, 
With courage still for conflict : whom, unarmed. 
Fierce Baal thought, with one sure stroke, to cleave 
Miserably twain : a moment his huge sword, 
Uplifted, adding terror to its sway. 
Hung like a bladed comet in the air ; 



CHRIST IN HADES. 77 

Then fell, unmeasured, dreadful, from its poise 

Thrown forward with resistless force and weight. 

Back swift Alcides leaped, nor fled too soon ; 

His right foot stained the adamantine point. 

That trenched the rock beneath, as where a stream 

Breaks fissured way. Ere Baal from the blow 

Retrieved his height, the hydra-quelling mace 

Fell through the air, with horrible descent : 

The stroke roared like a wind, and on his casque 

Struck thunder, and his linked armor burst 

From his huge trunk, as lightning from an oak 

Breaks shattered rind and limbs ; crushed acres groaned 

At his decay, and o'er the din of war 

High rose the iron rumor of his fall. 

Nor did less tumult swell the late defeat 
Of monstrous Dagon, from whom, worse deformed 
With hippodame and kraken, self-assumed, 
So spirits can, turned infantry and steed, 
Nor chose the ambush of his doubtful shape. 
On him Orion clear, came undismayed, 
And as a dusky dragon, in close shade 
Of horrible thicket, sees, from his deep lair. 
With sleepy orbs amazed, a silver knight 



78 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Shine toward him like the sun, with like blind look 
He saw Orion ; who, while thus he stood, 
And unresolved to fight as god or brute, 
Upon his many shapes discharged a stroke 
More ruinous, than when, rising from the ark. 
Angered Jehovah, in the secret night 
Of his dark house, the biformed Triton struck 
Invisibly, and both his shapes deformed. 

And they no better fared at human hands, 
Who, vain of human empire, chose to seem 
Their own invented fictions, in the wild 
And wasteful riot of imagining mind. 
By high, angelic genius poesied 
In vedas and puranas, full of gods, 
By accident or penance, raised to heavens 
That on the blue Sumeru's summits lie, 
Above the sun, in the unmoving light 
Of Brahm ; — but their romancers pined beneath, 
In the immovable darkness, by no day 
Alternated : Who yet, this day, would be 
The awaking of their dream, the living gods 
Of their stone idols, and together marched — 
Bi-headed, many-membered, monstrous shapes ; 



CHRIST IN HADES. 79 

That moro by their complexity of parts 
Encumbered than assisted, fell and writhed 
Beneath the single, flashing hand that held 
One sword, directed by a dual eye, 
And by swift motion multiplied to meet 
Their many-weaponed, idly striking hands ; 
Too late, in the dread imminence, to change 
Back to angelic shape and wieldy limbs. 

Before all others terrible, advanced 
Eight-handed Shiva, and, with insult stern. 
Demanded Magog and great Madai old,' 
Whose filial nations peopled the world's east. 
That to their children's deities they, too. 
Should worship render ; but the answer felt 
On his crushed brain, so swift — more lion-like 
Than like dead stone — the fragment of a rock 
Leaped from gray Madai's hand ; unstayed. 
Huge Shiva's head sunk on his rear-ward breast ; 
Then, one by one, relaxed his threatening arms, 
Hand after hand its clanging weapon dropped. 
And clutched the air, or sought with outstretched palms 
To upstay his reeling trunk : Then Vishnu forth 
Sprang warrior-like, and stood in guise and shape 



80 CHRIST IN HADES. 

More buman, but, in stature, vast as when 
To Sbiva and to Brabiua, claiming each 
To be tbe oldest of tbe gods, be said — 
" He tbat ascending sball bebold my bead. 
Or tbat descending sball descry my feet, 
Is oldest :" Weary years swift Brahma climbed, 
And Shiva dived, but neither what he sought 
Discovered, although Brahma's lie prevailed. 

All stood amazed, by wonder more than fear 
Disabled, and no champion to assail 
The armed and living mountain dared a thought ; 
Till Indian Dionysus, reckless, drove 
His leaping chariot, whirled by tawny pards, 
Toward tbe colossus ; and a javelin hurled 
High in the air where seemed to be bis head, 
But vainly, and another at bis breast 
As vainly threw ; both through tbe phantasm passed 
As through the air ; then at his feet — where stood, 
Beneath the mighty umbrage, the true form — 
A third, and suddenly the towering shape 
Fell into shadowy ruin, as a cloud, 
By lightning rent, bursts, and descends in rain. 



CHRIST IN HADES. 81 

But there the greatest imminence of the field 
Hung doubtful, and the noon of battle stood, 
Where Cain met Asrael.' He from heaven held 
Commission still, executor of the word — 
Fatal to all, in Adam — " Thou shalt die.". 
Task to fulfil by no damned angel sought, 
But, eagerly, by him ; less through desire 
Of the carnivorous glut, than from the strange, 
Inventive pleasure that he took to try 
Each different means of death, and power in each, 
And task the last capacity of pain : 
To men invisible, yet by many names, 
White Leprosy, and pined Consumption, known, 
Hot Fever, and immedicable Plague. 
But now, in his own shape, more ghastly stood 
The mighty Ethiop : from his caverned head, 
With hiding basilisks terrible, and browed 
With night, down to his noiseless feet 
Two sable wings fell wide ; on which he sails, 
Each day, o'er all earth's region, and which oft, 
When he o'er some full capital, forewrit 
For desolation, hovers with the Night, 
Rain pestilence. And thus spake the fiend 
4« 



82 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Polluted most and deadliest of all powers 

In earth or hell. " First rival, and my first, 

But too reluctant victim, — who this hand 

Preventedst of its right to the first death, 

Thyself to feel it first ; and found'st the charm 

Sought of thy God against my dreaded power, 

Less potent ; seek'st thou again to prove 

The miserable hour, the fear, the pain ? 

Or wouldst thou, for my victim not again 

Fate yields thee, as thou deem'st, become my slave 

By second conquest, and with torpid chain 

Lie fever-bound in hell, or, at my choice, 

Sit leprous at my feet, or ague-struck. 

Unnerved, and palsied in my presence live ?" 

To whom hell's premier answered, with close brows 
" Sick-haunting raven, pleased with carnal taste 
Of carcasses, and stench of monuments ; 
Queller of babes, fierce troubler of the old 
Bed-rid humanity, night-dismal kite. 
Earth's scavenger ! dost thou thy service deck 
With name of conquest ? — for thy office erst 
On me performed, of which thy boast is framed, 
Take late requital now." Swift, at the word. 



CHRIST IN HADES. 83 

The felon plant that armed his hand, propulsed, 

Swung circling to its aim : down Asrael sunk. 

Like a hurt vulture, on his ample wings 

Recumbent ; but immediate rose — as she, 

Sick with the peaceful prospect and pure air. 

Aloft, springs from her rock against the wind 

That brings the taint of death — and with that sword 

Unseen, beneath whose wound the host 

Of Sennacherib without battle fell, 

Or in dark duel, touched triumphant Cain : 

No wound, nor perforate nor trenched gash appeared. 

Ichor or blood diffusing ; pale he stood, 

A breathing time, but breathless ; forward then, 

As when that tropic wind that comes unseen 

In sea or sky, a tall mast, cordage-knit. 

With all its drawing clouds, snaps short — it falls 

Sea-ward, and circling half the sky — he fell. 

Without a sound till fallen, and felt death 

So as the spirit can, and as the parting soul 

Perhaps may feel it, when with mortal pangs 

Struck through the bodily sense, but not destroyed. 

But courage now, from the first shock o'erpast, 
Encouraged more, to see the fall indign 



84 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Of one so potent, in tlie heavenly powers 

Revived, with furious shame ; and, by their foes 

Taught horror, armed with flames they fought, 

And fire opposed to fire : flash lighted flash, 

And lightning against lightning streamed adverse, 

And on their helmets blazed, and round their shields 

Rolled in terrific circles. Each a Jove, 

Ethereal-armed, seemed, fighting ; and the crash 

Of simulated thunder wanted not 

From fall of heroes armed, and din of shields. 

Earth shook, and universal silence roared 

With sudden dissolution. Nor withstood 

The fiery cavalry the assault of arms 

Of their own substance forged ; down sunk 

The snorting team, or into formless flame 

Their speed escaped : when lo — a stranger change ! 

Below heroic dignity debased, 

Gods, by demoniac instincts and wild rage 

Excited, leaving form and port divine, 

Took shape of lion, pard, or serpent fanged, 

As bold or treacherous nature prompted each 

With horrible suggestion. On each side, 

With shapes of heaven, and human features, mixed, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 85 

Huge tigers crouched, and glared, or the scared field 

Circled with threatening yell and fiery spang ; 

And unicorn and centaur to the clang 

Of trumpets neighed. But such a sight not long, 

God, from his all-surveying height, might leave 

In heavenly prospect. Suddenly a storm — 

Blown periodic from the wastes of hell — 

Fresh fuelled with the wrath of fire, came down, 

Involved with thunderous roar and dismal shade. 

Like mountain peaks above the mist, the flames, 

Through pitchy clouds, rolled their advancing spires 

To heights unmeasured, and the sulphurous air 

Kindled with quick combustion : wide around. 

Linked lightnings fell, and thunder denounced wreck 

To all that stood before. Not sooner fall, 

When, in the desert, 'gainst a caravan, 

Of merchant-camels Bedouin horsemen ride, 

If the fierce saymel redden the blind air, 

Robber and spoil, than these, of men or gods 

Embattled, first, and in most dreadful field, 

Fell miserably, with all their useless arms 

And puissance, defeated, at the breath 

Of their great Arbiter, unmoved, in heaven. 



BOOK IV. 



BOOK IV. 

Ji;sT then, as on the night that with veiled stars, 
And brows with deeper folds of darkness bound, 
Attended Christ's great burial, Titan-morn, 
From out the east horizon's fiery gulf, 
Upheaved his flaming orb, — ^just then, and near 
Where, sunk below its farthest published beam, 
Abaddon sat dethroned before his throne, 
Amid the stern and darkness-deepening frown 
Of mutinous gods, — the silent throng of saints. 
Before the mountain-altar on which stood 
Their sacrifice and Saviour, from the floor 
Of paradise uprising, to the day 
Of his refulgent look, unveiled their eyes — 
Splendrous with unaccustomed light, and bathed 
In the translucent dew from their great joy 



90 CHRIUT IN HADES. 

Distilled, in unrepressed, calm tears, that each 
Insphered a smile, as dew-born drops, a sun ; 
And made fresh flowers spring where'er they fell. 

He, from his eminence, discerning all 
His rescued flock, as, with the rising sun, 
A shepherd, from his height, o'erlooks a field 
White with his peaceful feudatories, smiled 
Manifest love, which that far-banished realm 
Than sapphire heaven more brightened ; and these words 
Spake,' far and near heard equally distinct. 
" Loved and elect of Heaven, loved by me, 
From everlasting, with fraternal love ; 
For whom I left the Godhead's high repose, 
And clear and tranquil sway, and, in this form, 
Have sought, and in this place — from earth 
Descending, through the gate of death — 
Meet you, with joy like yours ; and greater joy 
Preparing, shall soon lead you where with me, 
They whose sole rest has been in sleep and death, 
Shall rest from death in life, from sleep awake, 
To rest in waking, where no night, nor sleep. 
Falls on the eyes, nor dimness of the soul 
Beclouds them, or from weariness or tears. 



CHRIST IN HADEH. 91 

But first, I hither come to win the keys 
Of heavenly access from the sovran foe, 
And your accuser ; yielded to his hand, 
Till one of human kind shall wrest them thence : 
Nor does he doubt, who put to test the strength 
Of military heaven, and dared to cite 
His throned liege to duel, these to keep 
In his propriety, 'gainst a foe so weak. 
Now, first, shall your dark janitor suspect 
That not for his strict hate, and your fixed doom, 
He holds that office, but for his defeat 
And your advantage, in the distant scope 
Of Heaven's purpose, that debars your right 
To heavenly station with the pure unfallen 
Deities, and yet creatures, (who, because 
Created, use their gift of narrow thought 
More to be just than merciful, and great 
More than magnanimous,) until a man, 
Never polluted, and with glory more 
Than they adorned, and with the Father's love, 
Lead up his erring race, and in their shape, 
Before the bosom-seraphim, and great 
Angelic elders, high above all place 



92 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Throned, and advanced at the right hand of Power, 

Authenticate their title to a seat 

Above their origin or merit ; and pride, 

Heaven's sole temptation, and through which alone 

Angels are fallible, to worship turn 

And meet humility. My coming long deferred 

You deemed, and, in this banishment, complained 

Yourselves Heaven's orphans, if indeed his sons. 

I came not in the green and sunless time 

Of patriarchal writ, the shepherd age, 

When on the sparsely tented Asian fields 

Still hung creation's early dawn and mist, 

Lest legendary soon, forgot, or mixed 

With fable, should become the act whose fame. 

Though harsh to untuned ears the hymn of death, 

Shall henceforth be the music of the world : 

But on the plenary and highest noon 

Of human wisdom, though at brightest dark, 

I rose with light, and to the greatest height 

Of man's ascent descended. Now begins. 

Far stretching o'er all empire to the end. 

My reign on earth : Jerusalem no more. 

But all the earth is holy. Sion still 



CHRIST IN HADES. 93 

Bears on her hills a temple, fashioned high, 

And full of glorious office, but devoid 

His presence who from human lips loves truth 

More than his praise ; and soon her Holiest Place 

Beneath the feet of nations shall be stamped, 

And bruised with iron dint : To-day is laid 

With deep and sure foundation in my death, 

Soon, in my resurrection, to be raised 

With heavenly superstructure fair, the new 

Jerusalem ; the undecaying pile 

Of glory spiritual, whose most pure walls 

Shall be the illimitable air, her gates 

The East and West, — but Sion is no more." 

At this, not spoken by their heavenly Guest 

Without some touch of sorrow, not a few 

Among the dwellers on that pallid shore, 

Wept irrepressibly ; and hoary heads 

Desponded patiently upon the breast 

Of king and prophet ; and a sound was heard, 

As of the golden strings of many a harp 

Broken by hasty hands, and sighs were breathed, 

And sobs tumultuous ; as when a band 

Of exiles, on a foreign coast, to hear 



94 CHRIST IN HADES. 

The ruin of their city, while for wrongs 

And injuries they should smile, break out and weep. 

But thus his interrupted speech pursued 
The orator divine, seer self-inspired : 
" The earth is mine, my empire over all 
Imperial ; and now to the defeat 
Of hell, and of the last infernal hope, 
I lead you forth ; not for the unarmed aid 
That ye can render, who, at rest, shall see 
Victory from armies wrested, without arms. 
And to this end, through recent quarrel, sprung 
From the unnatural league of fiends and men, 
Innumerous hell is gathering to one field 
Her legions ; and, in realms of heat and cold, 
All the remotest lurkings of despair 
Yield their dark tenants, in one confluent host 
Assembled, to receive me with my saints. 

He ceased, and to the earth once more they bowed, 
Thanks giving and adoring : low, at once, 
Bowed saint and airy minister : but one 
There was who nearer clung, and at his feet 
Bewildered wept ; no citizen more old 
Of this fair region than that hour, with Christ. 



CHRIST IN HADES. 95 

The only human shape besides, he came, 

And proved so soon the promise, " Thou this day 

Shalt be with me in paradise." Then all 

The ethereous host, inspiring mighty breath. 

For conceived anthemings of vaster tone, 

With noise as of the calm sea thundering, stirred, 

And sunk and rose in sounding depths and heights ; 

And to that dark profound, from highest heaven, 

Their harps drew echoes ; and the solemn crowd. 

Beneath and distant, whitening hill and plain 

Far stretched without horizon, hymning in 

With apt and instant hallelujahs, poured 

Doxology and thanksgiving, highest praise. 

And glory highest ; while, through all the air, 

Upon the multitude around fell flowers, 

By seen and unseen hovering angels showered. 

Profusely, from their hands and loosened locks ; 

Fresh roses, lilies, and violets, like morn 

With evening blended : as if flowery heaven 

Had shaken down its blossoms to the wind. 

And all its thick, ambrosial branches loosed 

Their bloom and fragrance ; or the under sky 

Its stars had snowed down, noiseless, from the blue 



96 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Serene of night. That moment, where, beneath, 

The dread, transfigured peak leaned from the verge 

Of the ingulfed, unfathomable void, 

A shadow fell along the airy steep, 

And vanished, like a just appearing cloud 

Below the horizon driven by the wind — 

A shadow, but with lineaments and shape 

Like human, that grew pale almost to air, 

And cast a look behind, that had made dumb 

Deep groaning pain, or hollow-shrieked despair ; 

For Judas knew his Lord, and stretched his arms, 

With that last look, reverse to his descent. 

And, headlong, disappeared in the deep gulf. 



BOOK V. 



BOOK V. 

Withdrawn from that dire field, and far remote 
Each from the other in the unbounded waste, 
The hostile powers took counsel for their state 
What farther, on each part, might be devised 
To end the war, and in their vexed domain 
Fix the disputed sceptre. And not long 
The place to which the angelic tribes retired 
To build again the wreck of war, remained 
Without intelligent sound amidst the roar 
Of elements dismayed, and guttural dash 
And low-lisped threatenings of the sinking storm. 
First, Baal lingered up, and east around 
A sullen eye, as if to seek a foe 
Or challenge accusation ; but none stirred. 
Some sat with head bowed low, some lay supine 
At monstrous length, and others, half reclined, 



100 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Looked up into the darkness with fixed eye. 

But by their apathy not less enraged, 

His fury dashed itself against despair, 

In words like these : " Since none who shared with me 

This late prodigious fortune, would impeach 

My conduct of the war, or cares to hint 

It otherwise had fallen had Satan led, 

There haply needs not to enforce my words 

The rebel-dared decadence of this hand. 

Yet why of words speak I ? at all why speak ! 

'Tis not the skill of words can cure these wounds. 

Or heal the breach in our strong title up : 

It lies not in the flowery epilogue 

To an act barren of glory, or the pomp 

Of eloquent declaim 'gainst earless fate, 

To excuse dishonor, thus dishonored more. 

And doubly shamed defeat, from foes so weak. 

But this we all have proved long since, that fate, 

Who to the strong gave courage, on the weak 

Bestowed more cunning, and, for want of power 

Found in themselves, the mastery o'er powers 

Extrinsic : yet their artifice once known, 

What more can it avail ? But strength bestowed 



CHRIST IN HADES. 101 

Is a perpetual gift, if courage not deserts 

The citadel of all power. Rise then, and arm ! 

Prevent their new devices, and perchance 

Their triumph may prove prologue, in the end, 

To worse disgrace, and be to our defeat 

As when one lifts a foe above his head 

To dash him from the height beneath his feet." 

He spake ; but none who bowed looked up, and they 
Who flooded all the field with disarray. 
And loose disordered arms, rose not, nor stirred. 

Then to the moody senate, from his seat. 
Composed, nor with defeat in look or mien, 
Stood up mercurial Asmod the divine: 
His argent shield, thrown back in peaceful guise, 
Horizoned, round, his head and shoulders fair ; 
And on his ebon spear he leaned, with mien 
That made it seem for this, not war designed. 
And thus, unchecked by Baal's hostile eye. 
He spake. " Much have I heard of late, oh friends, 
Since the all-golden day of our estate 
Gave place to this sad night, in which we dream, 
With strange invention — heard and pondered much, 
In the celestial argument of gods, 



102 CHRIST IN HADES. 

And imitative poesy of men, 

Of destiny, necessity, and fate : 

But only this have learned thus far, that fate 

Is power, and power in us is fate, till met 

With greater power, be it of strength, or skill 

That makes strength instrumental. Both we find 

Abundant in our foe, though of the first 

Our leader but complains, with what just cause 

Both to accuse ye know. Omniscient craft 

I, least, can doubt in them, who me so oft, 

Their instigator to device, have taught 

Means to the end. The race, in motion warm, 

Symposiac and amorous, yet forced 

To rear their lives upon an iron soil. 

And make their over-peopled rock yield life 

Against its nature, every faculty 

Of art apply, exhaust ; and hither still 

The warlike breed descend, and bring to these 

Who arm against us each invention strange, 

Each artifice and new implement of war — 

Huge catapult, or enginery to raze 

Walled cities at a blow, or overthrow 

Whole armies, at safe distance, and secure. 



CHRIST IN HADES. 103 

What can avail blind force, though armed like Jove, 

And limbed like Atlas, that bears up the world, 

Against high stratagem, that turns its harm 

Against itself, and binds it with the chain 

Of its own rage, toils in its own attempt, 

And makes its arms the armory whence it draws 

Means for assault. Sooner shall we, here shut 

Under the dark, unyielding doors of earth, 

Storm the closed gates of heaven, and repossess 

The seats imperial where our ruin sits. 

Or, from this gulf of night ascending up, 

Hang trophies on the pillars of the sun, . 

Than found a kingdom, here, upon the forced 

Subjection of these less, yet more than gods. 

Our utmost flight of hope must perch, this side 

Success, on special victory, whose bruit 

May clamor 'gainst the fame of this defeat. 

But from what stratagem, since even here 

Mere force is vain, as this sad field attests, 

Shall hope commence ? I know of none but this ; 

They through old instinct, though with choice of state, 

Still keep their ancient shape, firm-knit to tread 

The earth their limitation. Also we. 



104 CHRIST IN HADE3. 

Though in this dungeon shut with human gnomes, 

Agile and tall remain, with wings to soar. 

Or dive, or sweep the air in circles, or extend 

The equator, or the horizontal plane. 

Or the deep pole. I counsel, then, to ascend 

Into the darkness, bearing all our war. 

And, coasting near the upper light and air, 

Until arrived to where they sit secure, 

In loose unharnessed ease, and paeans sing. 

On them — whose wave of battle in this deep 

Broke highest, and o'erwhelmed us — down descend 

In cataract of main war. Which, if approved, 

With instant speed perform : lest while we sit 

And meditate the voyage, they prevent 

Our purpose with the sudden clang of wings 

Induced at like suggestion, and rain chains 

And fiery missiles from the darkness down ; 

Or come trailing along the ground some damned 

Invention, and strange implement, to throw 

Huge fragments, crags, and flaming stones, and turn 

Hell's bottom on our heads, who sit thus prone, 

Disordered, unresolved, a host disarmed 

With arms around, as if, without a foe, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 105 

By their own weapons fallen ; so dismayed 
And lost we seem, without all pride and shame, 
Thus miserably escaped their first assault." 

He ceased ; and they approved his words as wise, 
And fit to become deeds. Straight, from the heap 
Of waste confusion Alpine statures tall 
Gathered themselves upright, and plucked their arms. 
And standards reared, redressed their shattered gear. 
And in their threatening limbs, new-armed, their 

strength 
And purpose felt, and poised themselves in air 
On their long-idle wings ; with not less stir 
Than the black cranes in Lithuania's fens 
When, from the austral winter overpast. 
Rise all the stormy clans, and seek the north. 



Meantime, the earth-descended powers convened 
In martial diet ; and — high-seated Cain 
First worshipped with obeisance due — began 
Colonial Cecrops, father of the West, 
And founder of the famed Athenian pile : 
With weighty brow, that frowned high enterprise 
5» 



106 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Above sagacious eyes that tempered fear, 

He stood erect, and crowned with that sole star 

Of Hesperus ; and these his words, that fell 

With sound of weight, that echoed ponderous thought. 

" Not less, in this armed council, than the first 

To exult, I glory in the event 

Of this late trial with the elder powers 

Of their celestial vaunt. Yet victory I know 

Not certain conquest ; and to overthrow 

Not always subjugates ; nor in one field 

Is empire lost or won ; nor can one day 

Decide the next, when foes so potent join. 

They who best know and prize themselves, least fear 

To prize their enemies. To us their power 

Is neither shame nor loss, to think them weak 

No credit to our own ; nor shames it strength 

To seek for aid, that oft prevents its need : 

Which, not delayed, I counsel for our cause, 

Against the next encounter, sure to fall. 

None here would use a thought to look for help 

To mighty Ai'doneus where he sits 

With Hecate forlorn. Nor, if unsought. 

Perhaps for sullen ages may he rise 



CHRIST IN HADES. 107 

From his stern apathy : while these will wage 

Eternal war ; and as the blue-eyed race 

Of Asar, daily, in their own demesne, 

On bannered fields, with joyful peal of arms. 

Contend in tournament and knightly joust. 

Or downright battle soon repaired — so we, 

Not with like gentle purpose and stern love, 

But fierce unsated hate, the deadly rut 

Of unrepairing rage, and pined revenge. 

By slaughter unappeased, but fed by strife, 

Shall meet a foe as strong and stern ; and, each 

Unconquerable, to each the endless strife 

Shall be defeat. In numbers we exceed. 

And this advantage will our party still. 

With augmentation, keep ; for every death 

On earth above, save of the few who pass 

To blest Elysium, is to us a birth : 

While to their side, the kindred powers of heaven, 

Unprocreant, immortal, and ordained 

Infallible, yield not the numerous might 

Of their addition. But we need not wait 

The harvest of our race for multitude. 

If not controlling, not to be controlled. 



108 CHRIST IN HADES 

The sons of Ccelus and of Odin sit, 

Titans and fierce Einherier, undisturbed, 

Each in their toparcby ; and have not heard 

The larum of loud war, or from the noise 

Of elemental conflict in these gulfs 

Distinguished it. I counsel that from these. 

Ambassadors, on early foot, entreat 

Availful aid. Besides the advantage sought, 

'Twere to mankind much shame that our bad foes, 

Who no relationship sustain or ties, 

But of degree or rank, should make one cause, 

And we, derived from the same loins, with one 

Sole father, and one common spring 

Of all our streams, not make one flood, one sea 

Of confluent battle, and in one armed wave 

Break on their leaguer, or main head of fight. 

From Saturn, of the Titans youngest born. 

So the Olympian parables unfold, 

(Whom the pragmatic Judeans would fain 

Demonstrate Noah,) sprang the race of gods. 

Him vengeful Earth, we story, armed with steel 

And saved from Uranus what time he thrust 

His giant ofispring from his sight beneath 



CHRIST IN HADES. 109 

The floor of day, but whom by Heaven himself 
They celebrate preserved. From him, three sons 
Shared all the earth we also said, and named 
Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. But the Greeks 
To old lapetus' trace the human stream, 
Brother of Saturn, whom these call his son ; 
From him loan, whence the lonians spread 
Westward : and from fair Gomer, eldest born 
Of the same sire, the north derives its swarm, 
That from the flowery south poured forth, to hive 
In frost and cold ; from him it takes its name 
Cimmeria, thence the Cymri, and from him 
The Rome-recoiling German ; and his sons, 
Guileless and simple, virtuous without lore. 
And warlike without pomp, spread from the steep 
Sides of hoar Caucasus to the region dark 
That neighbors the sea-washed Atlantis vast, 
And northward, at the entrance to these shades, 
Shores on the cavernous pole. There oft, at night, 
The solitary fisher hears upon his door 
The hollow summons to his task, and finds 
His boat deep-freighted, sinking to the edge 
Of the dark flood, and voices hears, yet sees 



110 CHRIST IN HADES. 

No substance ; but arrived where once again 
His skiff floats free, hears friends to friends 
Grive lamentable welcome : the unseen 
Shore resounds, and all the specious air 
Weeps forth the names of father, brother, wife. 
There the weak commonalty of mankind 
Most haunt, reluctant exiles, who their fond 
Abode choose regional to earth ; the more 
Heroic enter the immediate heart 
Of most profound perdition, and divide, 
In these interior depths, their full-swayed power, 
Imperial, with the ancient thrones of night. 

But not the whole of our unhappy race 
Make that dark journey : they who erred 
Through Heaven's dark counsel, or by high constraint. 
Just homicides, and violators bred 
To violence, the rash incontinent, 
And they who break injurious oaths, at death 
Are wafted to deep-realmed Atlantis, o'er 
The wide sea unwounded by a keel. 
Immense and dark the land ; all the remote 
Wild region in one solemn shadow lies 
Of green contiguous woods, with rivers spanned, 



CHRIST IN HADES. Ill 

That in their arms wind half the earth, and hills 
Dependent, and dividing the blue air, 
From arctic to antarctic Cold : and here 
Live the new race a timid, twilight life, 
Oblivious and expiatory, spent 
In feeble war or chase. But soon, (so shows 
Our divination dark, a gift no more, 
Itself informs us, to suborn the praise 
And adoration, as to gods, of men, — ■ 
Once yielded to our oracles, on earth 
For ever sealed ; yet who can cease to feel 
A human interest in our common race, 
And their dark history, storied or foretold ?) — ■ 
Soon shall this upper limbo, and in part 
Elysium, dissolve ; the older breed 
Of actual men shall touch the farther shore 
Of ocean, and the hybrid race shall fade 
Like hyperborean flowers, that in the rear 
Of winter spring, and at his bleak regress 
Fall, sickled by the steely touch of frost. 
"West from the gulfed pillars of the wide- 
Victorious Hercules, swift equine ships 
Shall ride the unfooted ocean-road, before 



112 CHRIST IN HADES. 

O'erpassed but by the chariot of the sun ; 

Or when his golden cup Alcmena's child 

Employed for Erythea, and against 

Old Ocean bent his bow, so fable tells. 

These, one shall guide, whose greater deeds shall make 

Mine, and the more vociferated fame 

Of Jason — in the voyage that called gods 

To venture, and pressed Theseus to the oar, 

The Dioscuri, and the aged might 

Of Hercules— an old-time tale, a faint, 

Far-listened echo in the ears of men. 

Him following, the sons of that stern race, 

Here seated by themselves, but whose strong aid, 

If I advise with wisdom, should be sought. 

Shall there build up a world against the old, 

And balance East and West, and wield far -swayed 

But liberal empire, and themselves their king. 

But what imports us more than such discourse. 
Though what at other times best pleased to hear, 
Is now to fortify our assaulted state 
With league proposed to their great ancestry, 
Already storied in deific runes. 
And to our own and theirs, the Titan brood, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 113 

Antediluvian ; and to this end, 

Let speedy heralds to the north and east, 

Their earlj-seized partitions of this realm, 

Fly, winged with your commands." Here ceased the 

sound ; 
And the pleased diet on his proper hand 
The peaceful wand imposed, and bade him seek 
The Titans with soft words ; the other charge 
On fleet, aerial Perseus bestowed ; 
Then rose, and filled the dusky height with shape 
And feature, and, for dawn of danger, roused 
The hoarse, prophetic thunder of a camp. 



BOOK VI. 



BOOK VI. 

To punish them, though damned, in whom the light 

Of heavenly counsel scarce displaced the dark 

Of human ignorance, the rod is slight. 

The penalty not extreme. This, to their gain, 

Found the gigantic children of the north 

In the dim house of Hela entertained 

More like death's guests than victims, though at best 

With dreary cheer. Their empire, dark and wild. 

But not from Pandemonium less remote 

Than Paradise, in the uttermost bleak sides 

Of that deep region, stands, replete with fear 

And howling dangers, but unvexed by fire. 

Here pallid heroes act again their deeds 

Rehearsed in runes, and emulate the fame 

Of the bright Asar,' and their state by bards 

Imagined, in great Asgard, seat of gods, 



118 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Or frozen Utgard, territory wide 

Of giants mountain-tall, and strong as winds. 

Here Nastrond's snaky marsh, whose waves freeze black, 

And thaw in blood, spreads under curdling mists ; 

Where base and coward lie, forever seared, 

For punishment, with terrors ever new. 

For the less monstrous, frowning Helheim stands, 

Within whose icy halls the dead guests sit, 

Unmoved, and mute through noiseless age on age. 

But in more temperate air Vingolfa's bower 

Shelters the tall blue-eyed, and flowers ; both fair, 

But without bloom ; and Trudvang here in-walls 

A space wide for a realm : as high up piled, 

Valaskialf rises, roofed with blazing shields. 

That spread a golden blush upon the clouds 

Hovering on earth's near confines in the north, 

And from beneath, like sinking Titan, light 

A skiey arc above ; so vast it towers 

O'er deep Valhalla and its seated throng 

Of godlike tenants : and the dome resounds 

With fierce festivity and iron din. 

Here, with the Asar and Asynior, sit 
The Einherier, and Valkyrior virgin-eyed. 



OMRIST IN HADES. 119 

Who each her chosen warrior — wooed a-field — 
Binds to her breast, with golden tresses wound, 
And pure-lipped kisses, for the only love 
Of glory, yields : The Berserker,'^ who scorn 
Armor, and armed, contemning coward herds 
Hid under shields, and crippling from afar 
The fair athletic limb with treacherous dint 
Of foreign substance, hardened wood or steel — 
Crouch naked and apart, and tear their food 
Untouched by fire, and drain the brimfull skulls 
Of giants, while their insolent wild scorn 
For Odin's self, and for the thunderer Thor, 
The danger of his hammer scarce restrains. 
Beneath the board huge wolves, like house dogs, slink. 
Whose hunger glares, alike, on feast and guests ; 
And haunting ravens flit above, with song 
Dissonant ; or the dusky favorites perch, 
And wing the foodfuU hand imbrued with war. 

Then rise the throng with frowns, who late like friends 
Sat side by side, and spoke each other's praise. 
And to the field rush stormful ; where each day 
The Valkyrior choose the brave, and to the rest 
Leave widowhood. Yet oft to him that falls 



120 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Comes the impartial maid, as when at first 
She marked his red cheek in the pallid field : 
Who as he fell — stooping with arms dispread 
Under her smiling locks of shadowy gold 
Down from her checked, ethereal, snowy steed — 
Beheld her, and forgot defeat and shame ; 
Nor heard the taunts of his too numerous foe 
The dying warrior, on whom Glory's self, 
Incarnate, seemed to smile, and bend her rays. 

Now, on his broad-winged sandals, to this bourne 
Of souls heroic, Perseus, from the bow 
Of their great purpose sent who ruled his speed, 
Came like an arrow ; nor once paused in all 
His spacious flight, till far pursued, as when 
A ship from the equatorial — through half 
The heavenly — circle, down the polar sky 
Sails till she hits the impenetrable cold. 
At length his swift feet stayed upon the edge 
Of the steep gulf Gingungagap, that yawns 
From shore to shore, as wide as that which laves 
Swart Afric's forehead, and the pillared feet 
Of Europe, her pale sister, on each hand. 
No element, however, that which parts 



CHRIST IN HADES. 121 

Bleak Niffelheim from Muspelheim contained,^ 
For oared or wafted way, with transport large, 
Like that which from old Carthage to the wall 
Of Roman empire, and to Afric back. 
Defeating and defeated nations bore ; 
But in its stead a void and dismal depth, 
Whosa dumb abyss afflicted more the ear 
Than that when roars, with side-redoubled sound, 
The inwashing sea 'gainst Calpe's windy stroke. 
No other means of passage here appeared, 
Than a faint rainbow, that, by what dim light 
Strays hither from the earth, upon an arch 
Of mist, foundationless, stands built, and spans 
The dreadful space. Still he who boldly treads 
Will find it firm, but with one fear he sinks 
Into the steep vacuity, unstayed 
By foot or grasping hand. Let him who knows 
What glory is, bethink him if his feet 
Have not o'erpassed this bridge, in Sagas called 
Bifrost, that leads to the abode of gods. 
O'er this, as on a solid arc of rock, 
Or mortised timber firm, undaunted strode 
The mighty courier ; and before him found, 
6 



122 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Upon the farther coast, a barrier huge 

Of icy mountains, upon either side 

Stretched like a sheer precipitous wall, whose top 

Rose inaccessible to sight. But he 

Like wind or flame, aloft, unbafl3ed, sprang ; 

And, like an eagle on a mountain's side, 

Upright ascended, with ethereal step 

Scaling the dizzy steep : availed him then 

The winged gift compelled, for their one eye 

And single tooth, from Ceto's hoary brood. 

Now on the breathless peak he stood, and cast 
On all sides round his armed image down. 
That from the icy cliflfs gleamed out infract. 
And far across a plain, and o'er wide seas. 
And deep-sunk vales in which the glassy mist 
Stood undistinguishable from lake or sea, 
In the inferior horizon, he beheld 
The top of huge Valaskialf and the tower 
Of godlike Odin ; that, far-off, appeared 
A natural mountain, overshaped by art. 
Soon on that side, precipitant, like a star. 
Or meteor, he fell from peak to peak 
Just touched with winged and scarce alighting feet, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 123 

And reached the level vale ; through which so swift 

Half ran, half flew the wing-dight, glorious child 

Of golden Jove, the mist on the cold air 

Blown from his nostrils — and that half concealed 

His burnished armor, and the nymph's clear gift, 

The sun-forged helm whose day-like beams could make 

Invisible whoever wore it, at his will — 

Behind him shone in the clear ether, stained 

By his irradiant voyage, like the wake 

Of a swift orient ship when it seems one 

With that of the great sun, that sinks astern. 

At length Valaskialf's gates and solemn porch 
Stood wide and deep before him, only kept 
By Cerberean Fenris, who, too late, 
Uproused his gaunt and monstrous corpse to bay 
The foreign step. Before the snaky head 
By the intruding Grorgophont displayed, 
Fixed stood the stony glare in his wide eyes, 
The huge portcullis of his craggy jaw 
Stood open, and the warning howl, unheard. 
Still swelled his rigid throat. So on he passed 
And in Valhalla at the banquet stood 
Unseen, beneath the wondrous helm, by eye 



124 CHRIST IN HADES, 

Of any god ; who wondered not the less 

At the fixed stare, and long, aflfrighted howl 

Of spectral ban-wolf, and the ominous croak 

Of wheeling ravens, with the instant scream 

Of joyful vultures from their bannered perch 

Along the wall. Then runic Bragur, moved 

With frenzied portent, loosed his robes and hair, 

And to his shrieking harp loud raved the song 

Of Ragnarok,^ oft heard in Odin's hall 

With imitative din. Profuse of death 

The rune, sung with a battle's sound, and shrill 

With desolation, fit to please the ear 

Of dreaming horror : and its theme the great 

And final war in which all gods and men, 

And beasts, and giants join ; till in the end 

The gloomy Surtur from the heart of night, 

To their destruction by Alfader doomed, 

Leaps, armed with flames, and burns the day's clear 

light. 
And stars, and sun, and earth and heaven away. 

Came to the fearful strain as fearful pause. 
And, at the moment, the all-golden child 
Of Danae from his mystery flashed out 



CHRIST IN HADES. 125 

Upon their wouder ; fair as Mars he towered, 

Thus godlike tall, aud terrible in arms. 

Amazed the winking giants sat, and scarce 

The clear sheen of his complete mail could bear, 

And dazzling, sunny crest ; each, meantime, drew 

The breath through his stretched nostrils back 

Into his breast, distended with affright ; 

Irresolute all, if they at once should fall 

And worship, or strike dead the intruding guest : 

Who spake — well guarded between sight and sound, 

Bright apparition and smooth speech, to leave 

No interval. " I come to lead you, gods. 

To Ragnarok : no more the mimic war 

Ye need to wage ; now real danger sounds 

To utterance of conflict, and the last 

Occasion now of glorious strife, soon past, 

Trumpets the universe to arms. The field 

Awaits you where the Jotuns join their powers 

Against our race, and Surtur sits aloof. 

But doubt not shall avenge us, when the blow 

Of God Alfader breaks the chain of fate." 

At this, like magic scene, throughout the hall, 
At once, the crowded banquet to a host 



126 CHRIST INHADE3. 

Of warriors turned. He from his side forth drew 
His adamantine sword, a beam of day 
Tempered in deepest night, and waved them forth ; 
And from the towered and ample port, whose height 
They threatened with their stature, crowd on crowd, 
In thousands on thousands, rolled, as from a bay 
Returning, when, at once, the land wind blows 
And tide makes out, the many-murmured sea 
Gluts through a gulf, pressed by the storm behind. 



A smoother way, though in attempt and aim 

Of equal enterprise, the wandering chief 

Of Sai's found, than tasked the bright and swift 

Son of the golden rape ; yet passed a wide. 

Abrupt, and dismal interval of life 

In man, or plant, or reptile, which itself 

Had seemed fraternal in that total death, 

And solitude without an eremite 

To feel it solitary. On he fared 

O'er plains like great Sahara, only marked 

And measured by the sky, but more immense 

And sea-like smooth and drear ; and seas o'erpassed 



C H U 1 S T IN HADES. 127 

Like that which rots without a breaking wave 

Upon its desert shore, and spreads above 

Ingulfed Pentapolis, but rolls not out, 

Nor in, at all her gates ; with patient feet 

Ascended mountains self-revealed, whose tops 

Burned, from their base, like stars at distant heights 

In the immense of gloom : then under earth, 

Through caverns within caverns wound his way 

In close ravines, across the gloomy roar 

Of subterranean waters, and deep gulfs 

That yawned immeasurable ; his only guide 

Down these sunk mountains, and inverted heights. 

The star that crowned his forehead, and inwove 

His sable locks with gold, and flushed his eyes, 

Replete with eager fire. At length emerged 

Into an ample region in the main 

And common cavern of that lower world, 

He sees what distant seemed like hills, and rocks 

That fragmentary lie, confusedly heaped 

Where left by some great deluge or of sea 

Or sliding earth, with thundering glaciers borne 

From higher regions, and whose awful shapes 

Hint of old worship, fabling to the eye 



128 CHRIST IN UAUKS. 

As if for sacrifice by giants piled. 

Instant he lingered, — and breathed, half aloud, 

The Titans ! but none moved ; some on the arm 

Leaned far, with head depressed, or raised ; some lay 

Recumbent, and half buried, where the soil 

Had grown around them and the frequent rain 

Of fire and ashes strown the unmoving bulk, 

Incrusted, that it almost seemed a mound 

Grotesque with human shape. With noiseless awe 

The ambassador advanced, as if to rouse 

Them loth, though for that purpose sought ; 

And, nearer now, the bright surmounting star, 

That lamped his wondering eyes and wary feet, 

Bronzed with its light archaic, wondrous shapes, 

Things fabulous-vast and rude, that nature seemed 

Striving itself to art, in head or group 

Of half formed sculpture struggling from the rock, 

Or art Memnonian, to nature turned 

In gradual process, broken and deformed 

Under the noiseless hammer of strong Time : 

These, near, with human shadows broke his gleam ; 

And others, in the distance, half revealed. 

Lay undefined, like fragments of the night 



CHRIST IN HADES. 129 

With which the path of morning is forewrit. 

None looked, or turned, or deigned to mark who came 

With unaccustomed light ; nor might his look 

Have awed them into audience if seen, 

Though, as he stood to gaze, his measure seemed 

A cedar's shadow in the evening sun. 

But soon thus proemed his Egyptian tongue : 

'• wonder never raised by gods or men ! 
And see I then the more than men or gods. 
Of that old world the citizens, here doomed 
To this inert yet glorious rest of power 
Deemed dangerous to Destiny itself? 
The creatures of a greater time, and doom 
Proportioned ! less than your once selves, yet oh, 
How greater than the greatest of our world ! 
I from the later born of our one race, 
And common mother. Earth, have hither sped 
Ambassador, in their need against the power 
Of ruined — not ruling — gods, to seek your aid. 
Sought now, rest sure, where Destiny not fears 
Your, but for her, omnipotent avail." 

At this Hyperion roused himself, and ope'd 
His sunless eyes, assaying sight of whom 
6* 



130 CHRIST IN HADES. 

He thus bespoke. " Art thou from earth, voice ? 
Then tell me if the sun still rolls through heaven : 
An age, old with more ages, and I saw him not ; 
Nor his translucent ray has washed these orbs 
With dewy light, and purged their thickening gloom 
And fear has much possessed me that he comes, 
'Mid his long journey sunk in age or sleep, 
From Ocean's doors no more, nor comes the moon, 
That in his shadow walks, nor banded stars." 

" I come not from the earth," the voice returned, 
'' Yet doubt not that her green demesne is still 
The journey of the sun, — but from the heart 
Of this Tartarean deep, where gods with men, 
Or gods with gods more truly, wage once more 
The ancient war : but weaker now the foe, 
We stronger far ; yet not too strong to ask 
The aid of your great potency — for right. 
We also for a fallen Saturn fight. 
And his old cause, against revolted sons ; 
Whom, for more shame, he finds in his defeat 
Unfaithful ; though his first dethronement found, 
With that Hesperian Saturn, no sweet isle 
Beyond the ocean, where soft nymphs support 



CHRIST IN HADES. 131 

His hoary head, loosed from its golden load, 
And bed him in their bosoms, in his ear 
Whispering the while old tales that make him dream 
Himself still master of the earth and air." 

This heard Prometheus, where he lay supreme 
Upon his rock, from which a tree, of those 
Unsightly roots that rude and sparsely grow. 
But never verdurous, in that clime, had forced 
Its tough gnarled bole and split the stone ; 
As if from his indomitable life, 
One nature in the rock and him, it grew, 
Fed by the excess and bounty of his strength. 
And thus he spake, but took no greater heed 
Of any presence there, than if the voice 
Had fallen from the air, or out of heaven. 

" Who speaks of war to us ! who have subdued 
All strength in armies lodged, or single arm. 
Omnipotence himself have dared, and chained 
With his own chain — these bands that bind us fast ; 
And by existence here in this dark pit 
And closet of the earth, still check his power. 
Limit his infinite, and imprison Jove 
In his imperial domain. To act — 



132 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Strong should he be who acts, or weak, advanced, 

Or overthrown — is weakness, and shows need. 

But he is strong who with Omnipotence 

Or wills without constraint, or else defies, — 

And I defy. Then let the eternal power 

That knits the universe with his strength, and feels 

It through, and wields it as one moves his limbs. 

Hurl himself on me, I stir not this arm. 

Yet in the end shall conquer : let him break 

His aggregated thunders, storm on storm, 

Through deafened ages, till he lose, at last, 

The reckoning of his blows, it is to me 

But one concussion, heard, not felt, or felt, 

Unpained ; for I am all one thought, one will, 

And that is to defy." He spake, like one 

Silent thenceforth, and all the Titans groaned 

A stern response, as at the skiey fall 

Of region-thunder neighbored mountains raise 

A deep and sullen clamor, long prolonged. 

Yet the sage emissary to despair 
Gave not his purpose, but inspired to act, 
Unconscious whence the courage came or thought 
For such adventure, instantly advanced 



CHRIST IN HAUES. 133 

To the great atheist, and with his staff 
Caducean, charmed, unlinked his chain, and freed 
The sleeping force of sinewy neck and limb. 
Awhile with the strange motion of free power. 
Restored from so long lapse that it seemed given, 
And passionate incipience of thought 
As to what might proceed of that great gift, 
Weak as the unbreathed yeanling of an hour 
Fate's aged rebel and Jove's tyrant lay. 
Then, as the sea retires and for a space 
Leaves where he leaned upon the gulfy coast 
His caverns void, and the emerged rocks in air, 
Inflowing on his steps, — anon he roars 
Up from the dangerous main against the high, 
Percussed, resounding, limitary shore, — 
So rose the Titan, and his struggling arms 
Extended in the air, as if he sought 
The power who on his impious strength had fixed 
With unrelenting hand the band of law, 
Indissolute, though a world grew old the while ; 
Meantime the ear of Hell ingulfed these words : 
" Jove ! and do I feel thee yield at length, 
And tempt me to be God ? yet tempt in vain ! 



134 CHRIST IN HADES. 

No ! though the universe besides should feel 
Unworth and misery, and for that cause 
Be seized with instant longing to rush back 
Into thy bosom, I remain, and I 
Deny thy greatness, greater in myself 
Yet should it be of fate and not of thee 
That I am loosed this chain, but for her power 
Not worn ; thou, who hast with me so long 
Parleyed in thunder, and with lightning fought 
'Gainst the impregnable fort of my disdain, 
Then shall I see if thou with change of place 
Shalt conquer me, as I have thee o'erthrown, 
Though with all gods, and earth, and heaven to aid." 

Then old lapetus, of his stern son 
Impatient, and his long inactive scorn. 
Upheaved his gray paternal head and rose. 
And cited their despair to answer hope 
In words like these, " brethren bound 
In these afflictions, shall we wake, or sleep 
For ever ? rather should I not say die ! 
Here stretched until we turn again to earth, 
Our mother, as they tell, to whose dark womb, 
Meseems, we have returned to find our grave ; 



CHRIST IN UADES. 135 

Or living, do but live as parts of her, 
And she but live in us, as in these rocks. 
Not without stern endeavor shall we climb 
To heaven, and the stores of thunder reach, 
That give us mastery, though, as ye have heard, 
Our right at length sinks the fixed beam of fate. 
Which way fii-st opens, there success will prove 
This change in fortune, or in time prevent 
Our worse defeat : therefore this herald star. 
Whose human, pleasing voice has filled the ear 
Of dateless silence here with sound, whose theme 
Is life and strength in arms, and vital stir 
Beyond this tideless realm, all they will rise 
And follow, who henceforth companion me." 

He spake ; and at the sound, as when that famed 
And wondering traveller a great city saw 
Turned into stone, and all the peopled streets 
Made marble, nearer life than pillared groups 
In sculptured Memphis or great Athens set, — 
Noble and merchant, citizen and slave 
Stand statue-like, with rigid hand, that grasps 
The stifi"ened mane, the warrior, prompt to mount 
A reined equestrian shapely rock, that shows 



136 CHRIST IN HADES. 

The stony foam in his wide nostrils, curved 
By his long-parted breath, but uncollapsed, — 
What time a disenchanting trumpet blows, 
The warrior mounts, the steed with fiery hoof 
Resilient starts, the crowd throng in and out, 
And all the city thunders with the burst 
Of instantaneous motion, — or if where 
Great Arthur and his champions around 
Sit on their dreaming steeds in warlike muse, 
Sage Merlin's wand, unburied to restore 
To British chivalry its strength and flower. 
Should split their viewless prison, forth they start 
With levelled spears, but find no giants now. 
Themselves grown giants to their dwindled race, — 
Like these, or those — weak figures both to express 
Such magnitudes — up from their wearied couch 
The ease-tired Titans rose ; but with a sound 
As when an earthquake, from the centre, tears 
'G-ainst its circumferent motion through the earth, 
And for an instant checks its solid wheel ; 
That shakes down cities with the sudden pause. 



JBOOK VII. 



BOOK VII. 

Spirit of sweet Song, and child of Heaven, 

Miraculous Music ! who upon thy string 

Hast caught, and, more subliming, poured the noise 

Of bursting thunder, and the ocean's wild, 

Vast monotone, and the shriek of hovering winds ; 

And, of slight instrument dost with a touch 

Give to our ears the sempiternal chime 

Of heavens through heavens revolving, I full oft 

Have heard thee and rejoiced. But thou, stern harp, 

-^olian, golden, of heroic fame. 

Through which the airy spirits of the dead 

Move viewless, and for ever breathe like winds 

The Manes of the great ! for other sound, 

Who, with profaner hand, shall tune thy strings, 

Tense with the touch of Homer, and to fame 

Revived, his haply listening heroes bid, 



140 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Though in a darker state, appear in arms ? 
Yet thou, deemed dead, immortal-young and fair, 
Divine Calliope — where in some cave 
By old Scamander, or the yellow wave 
Of Tiber, sitting, hushed in marble trance 
Of statue pale, or thy own shadow hid — 
Shalt hear my early strain, and lest the attempt 
Jar on thy golden dream, thyself with touch 
Of many-memoried fingers aid the song. 

Might creatures be called happy, the dark stream 
Of whose existence from the only source 
Of happiness is cut off, such might be deemed 
The earth-sprung powers in hell's begun campaign, 
Plumed with such desperate fortune, and their state 
Of sullen passion into action changed, 
And busy hope and fear ; the tideless bay, 
Their solitary port, that to the main 
Of being heaved no wave, uproused once more, 
And swelling with the self-same tides of power 
And sympathy, that move both earth and heaven. 
They all who toiled, or idled in the camp, 
Di-ew from the fresh and glowing breeze of life 
A seeming health, and to their aspect pale 



CHRIST IN HAUES. 141 

Apparent bloom in cheek and lip, and fire 

And sparkle in the eye. Some their new powers 

Tried on the elements, to invent strange arms, 

Missiles that on their object should beget 

New weapons, wounding wide, or in the air 

Burst horrible, and fall with showers of fire. 

Yet here but little used, nigh useless made. 

Where swifter means and motion stead, and weights 

Thrown irresistible by a living arm. 

Others defensive armor wrought, to fit 

All movements, welted firm, and closed to search 

Of tempered weapons, or the subtle wound 

And venom of insinuating fire. 

And beings now of female form appeared. 
But haggard beauty, to their former selves 
Such as the day-paled moon, by early men 
Distinguished from a cloud ; and still their eyes 
Gave light to their wan beauties, and seemed stars 
"Wandered from heaven, or such as hear the knell 
Of fading night, with twofold service loud, 
Rung by the shrilly summoner of morn : 
Nor did their womanhood make hell more fair. 
Nor its harsh gloom might mitigate for man : 



142 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Their sole employ, before this warlike stir, 
Seated apart, to mourn, and like unseen, 
Transfigured Progne, grieve out all their night 
With tales of treacherous love in life long past, 
And go through all the story of the world. 
And all their scorns and loves, here turned to hate 
If lust, indifference if love. But now 
Familiar war with pleasing dread subdued, 
And glorious lure of famed heroic strength 
Attracted these stern dames again to mix 
With hated men. Nor did they want some sense 
Of old association in their sex 
With warlike feats on earth, by them admired, 
For them achieved. Mycsena's rugged queen, 
Frowned back by stern ^gisthus, turned 
To Agamemnon, who turned not, nor met 
Her eyes, but with his own, amidst the crowd, 
Sought Iphigenia. Helen armed the pale 
Priamides, to whom the presence there 
Of great Achilles was more sad than hell. 
Electra to Orestes half gave heed. 
Half to Pylades, and the manly queen 
Penthesilea on Achilles gazed, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 143 

And marked the hand that wounded, and the eye 

That other wounds might make and heal : and midst, 

Sat, in a hushed and unintruded space, 

Eternal Homer, and his thousand-toned 

Continuous harp, to that immortal tale 

Of Troy subverted, and the adventured way 

Of gray Ulysses, rung with sounds that awed 

More than Dictaean thunder ; and which drew 

To that dim deep the all-illumined shape 

Of glory down from heaven : Achilles smiled, 

The Atridse, and grand Ajax, his self-judge 

And executioner, smiled each to see 

His virtues and the faults, his virtue's best 

And best loved flatterers, distinct alike. 

In the just mirror of his Jove-like thought 

Reflected ; and more wondered to perceive 

Himself made greater to himself, and deeds 

Heroic, and armed fortitude admired 

More in rehearsal than in conscious act. 

Which to repeat, indeed, full soon they met 
An unexpected summons. For the Northern powers. 
Advanced far as to the aspect of armed men, 
Reckless, and blinded to the swift aff'ront 



144 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Of their bi'iglit leader, and remonstrance loud 
To their mistaken fury, with unchecked, 
Headlong proclivity to whatever seemed 
To promise their sole joy, upon them fell, 
Unsignalled, as a self-loosed weight of snow 
Tears down some Alpine summit to the vale. 
But like a torrent they, or like a sea. 
Received it, and up-foamed, with wasteful roar 
Swallowing its ingulfed wrath, and melted soon 
The fractured and dissevered mass of power. 

Perseus first himself, withstanding, met 
The immediate onset, overborne by Thor, 
And backward thrown upon his empty hands, 
With head and feet bent under, and each link 
Of his Hephestian armor rent from each ; 
That anvil for his stroke he seemed, whose sledge 
Stayed not ascent with gain of gathered force; 
But ere contrary hurled, it hung in poise. 
While Thor glared up and down and saw but air. 
So swift his foe escaped. But better matched, 
Achilles of the sworded Odin stood 
The fierce encounter. Yet they lingered both 
Awhile, and gazed, and each admired and praised 



CHRIST IN HADES. 145 

The other for a god. So when a bull 

That through the wild his vanquished kind pursues, 

Or hunts the wide-mouthed bay of wounded dogs, 

His hunters erst, by chance a lion sees, 

With lowered horn he stares ; the bestial king 

Struck with his aspect, imitating, glares 

With large recumbent head and glowing eyes. 

His shaggy strength reposed upon his loins. 

Thrown back and bent to spring. And soon uproused 

The Achaean lion, but at distance first 

Put forth his strength ; and from his hand a spear 

Sprang eflfortless, like lightning from the arm 

Of alway-tranquil Jove — with aim as sure, — 

But from the tempered barrier which the arm 

Of Odin raised, glanced downward and struck through 

Where joined the ankle his supporting foot ; 

Who forward fell, but with directed force 

Threw all his height into one blow, heaved high, 

And far descending, and the steely hand 

Cleft from the wielding arm of Thetis' son, 

Deemed woundless, but in vain baptized in Styx, 

Amazed Achilles stood with doubt and pain. 
While Odin to his Vulcan-mated feet 
7 



146 CHRIST IN HADE3. 

Restored his stature. But, soon reproduced, 
The living from the severed member snatched 
The fallen sword ; and now his two-edged grasp 
Each plies, nor in the dazzled space between 
Leaves interval ; and shrilling winds rush forth, 
With momentary swiftness, from the sway 
Of their immense, wide-sweeping falchions, oft 
With dreadful shock colliding, and forced light. 
That kissed the gloom at every touch of steel. 
And what would be the end might almost seem 
Doubtful to Fate, where each with so great fame 
Stood forth, and ancient laurels now refreshed, 
Or withered more and rent, and strength so great 
As if the embodied West and glorious East 
Full-armed, in single duel met, should try 
Their past and future quarrel for the world. 
But, on the instant, now above their heads 
The darkness darkened more, and through the hosts 
The tongues of wide-loosed fury ceased, at sounds 
That ruined ruin, with the horrid stun 
Of falling rocks, and swift projectiles hurled. 
Resistless, from the height ; so, ere the earth. 
Their solid roof, unpillared by deep mines. 



CHRIST IN HADES, 147 

Down thunders, where, beneath the surface, delve 
Gain's swarthy slaves — a shower of loosened ore 
Foretells destruction : but still dreadlier fell 
War's deadly forgery, spears and darts that rung 
Like iron on iron shivered, where they struck 
The adamant field, rebounding, or pierced through 
Armor and armed, pinned to the fissured rock, 
Inextricably, or where crushed between 
Nether and upper flint, shield worse than wounds, 
They lay afflicted with the dint that fell 
Thick as falls hail, when, in the dropping year. 
To rocky Sipylus bearded Winter climbs, 
And marbles with his look the ceaseless tears 
Of the invisible Niobe of the air. 

As when a wind upon the sea descends, 
And hurls himself along, and holds his foe 
Beneath, who leaps against him in mad waves, 
If rain pours down with thunder, they their strife 
Both cease with mingled moan and dash, and flood 
Drowns flood and wind — these in mid-tempest stood 
Becalmed, and suffered storm. But impious Cain 
From where he lay, with hands and feet transfixed, 
Crucified on a rock, supine, thus loud 



148 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Blasphemed. " Jehovah, or whatever power, 

Hidden in gloom, exhausts his store of ills — 

Armed coward, great, in accidents ! who vaunts 

Of goodness, and the original pretends 

Himself of soul and spirit, with discourse 

Of holiness and justice, but brute strength 

Employs against us still ; think not defeat 

Follows assault though unresisted found. 

Pile earth and heaven upon these fettered limbs. 

And me to ruin, thy creation make 

One ruin, and thyself thereon sit throned, 

And I stretched under ; I am still as far 

Above thee, and my unimprisoned soul. 

Untouched, and free from chains, on all sides space 

Smiles out upon thee in disdain. In arms 

Strong I believe thee : author of a strength 

Greater than found in thee, the will and power 

That in himself he finds to be unpraised 

Yet just, — ^good, yet not hourly kneed and sung 

By angels, nor reflected in their smiles. 

Who, though thus crushed, can deem ? or who believe 

Thy nature could produce aught to oppose 

And hate it, foreign to itself, and doomed 



CHRIST IN HADES. 149 

Therefore to punishment ? Or, if thy pride 

Must claim our origin, — as misbegot 

Unnatural oflspring, why not then destroy 

Thy alien creatures, and the ill-tuned harp 

New string, harmonious with perfect praise ? 

They nought so much desire ; and to unmake 

At least might prove thee maker, which till then 

Whate'er thy power contingent, or by fate, 

Or elder birth bestowed, and kept, once gained. 

By cunning, and made sacred with the awe 

Of forged religion, I shall dare to doubt ; 

Though with more waste of thunder urged and noise, 

Thine ancient dialectics, or enforced 

With arguments like these, so apt at hand. 

And potent to convince those formed for pain." 

To whom thus scoffing, from the gloom a voice 
Responded in like vein : " Great Cain, our foe 
And signal dread, but dangerous most to Heaven ! 
We own the honor great, and not unfelt, 
To be mistaken for all-swaying Jove ; 
Nor does our power proved on thee warrant less, 
Nor the deep pain thy speech betrays ; but yet, 
Sooth to confess, we only use, like Him, 



150 CHRIST IN HADES. 

The just prerogative of superior force 

To afflict inferior natures, without grant 

Of privilege to retort. Of old indeed, 

We little thought, at variance ourselves, 

His rebels to have punished, and much less 

Reasoned his cause : which now I do to show 

Thee imbecile in intellect, thy sole boast. 

As body, though more obstinate in will, 

'Tis granted, than are some ; yet less by far 

Than many a brute, whose ignorance, the cause 

Of his low fortitude, had been also less 

Perhaps, had he, like thee, for ages been 

Academist in this unfettered school 

Of intricate and dark theology. 

Learn, sophist, that Jehovah's right obtains 

Not from his being this or that, but is, 

Because it seems, and has the power 

To enforce what it pretends, and punish those 

Its claim withstanding. Higher proof who needs ? 

Or what superior sanction could the fact 

(Though proved) of our creation to his deeds 

Afford ? or what thy arrogated proof 

Of genesis by our destruction shown ? 



CHRIST IN HADES. 151 

Vain argument ! for we ourselves unmake 
Both what we neither make, nor yet restore. 
Or what proi^ounds the imprecated bolt 
Annihilating — that but itself leaves nought — 
To the annihilated, and of proof 
Made unintelligent ; or if restored, 
After what lapse of time, yet who shall know 
Whether by power extrinsic or innate ?" 

Thus, to the atheist, the libertine. 
Dark Asmod, subtlest litigant for ill 
In the infernal forum ; who his foe 
Reviled, and with injurious defence. 
Alike derided Heaven. But now in him. 
And in the angel-host, and those oppressed 
Beneath the advantage that their station gave, 
Hearing took sudden captive tongue and hand 
And every power, as all a coming sound 
Discerned, yet distant, indescribable. 
Nor to be told if it was tread or flight. 
Or under ground, or both in earth and air ; 
As when an earthquake, on its march along 
The Mediterranean shore, or o'er the sea 
Submerged and sunk beneath its bottom, comes 



152 CHRIST IN HADES 

By whirlwinds trumpeted. Nor did they doubt, 
Who heard the sound, that, for these atheist scoflfs, 
God, as not seldom in their impious den. 
Had bared his terrible and still lurking hand. 

At once for flight, the ethereous army formed 
Their hovering ranks, and on delayless wing 
Sought a near mount ; and on its farther side 
Descending, perched, as on a leeward cliff 
The ominous flocks of ocean wait the storm. 



BOOK VIII. 



7* 



BOOK VIII. 

In earth above, on the celestial round 

Open to heaven, and clad with air and wave, 

And on that side of the great polar stream, 

Where the bold Grenoese touched the strand, till then 

The virgin of the sea, a marble stands, 

Whose shape by old Ilissus many a one 

Might equal, none excel ; a fresh antique. 

Birth of the old world and the new, that shows 

How Orpheus at the twilight doors of hell. 

Fast by lulled Cerberus, with forward stoop 

And hand above his patient brow, explored 

The hushed and awful deep. And thus, arrived 

To where he left of late his numerous league. 

With standards fixed and warlike sheen and din. 

To find it silent now and void and dim. 

Gazed Cecrops : and the hindered Titans stood 



156 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Expecting wlien his voice should clear the cause 
Of their delay. But nothing heard or saw 
The infernal pilot, whom conjecture strange 
Held dreamy mute, and fixed on leaden foot. 
For them dispersed upon the battered field, 
Like fear possessed of heavenly argument 
Proved perilous to the disputant, as those 
Who brought their mischief, and on pinions fled ; 
And for the passion of whatever ill 
Moved toward them, like a storm-predicting host 
In deep Sahara, these, from sight and sound 
Self-buried, lie, and wait the dismal wave. 

At leng^th he spake ; concealing what he feared, 
That they through paler after-thought had fled, 
Doubting the dread alliance which he brought, 
Of equal power to injure as to aid. 
" Or have they gone, for whom I broke your rest, 
O sons of Uranus, impatient grown 
To seek the foe, or by a greater power 
Dispersed, without a vestige fled — oh thought 
Too sad, though but conjecture, for a dream 
Improbable ! — I doubt ; nor can surmise 
Which — or what else befallen : but this I know, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 157 

That in this dreary void I left a host. 

Like gods in strength, and men in multitude, 

And, but by you, unmatched in earth or hell." 

To whom attentive Cain made quick reply. 
" Fled — even sight should not convict the eye 
Of one who knows us, although welcomed back 
To worse affliction, than thy absence sought 
With vain-successful mission to avoid. 
Nor yet by greater force you find us fallen, 
But by mistake and guile, thanks to the prompt 
And helpful malice of inveterate Heaven." 

At this, all they who cowered beneath the storm, 
Still felt, though past, of their angelic foe, 
All to whom hope, undying, though shot through 
With every star's malignancy, or pride. 
Or curious inclination to behold 
Their great allies, gave strength, uprose and stood ; 
Some towering straight and firm, some half upright ; 
And some from deep gulfs labored up, and gazed 
On the large brood of Ccelus, whom their mate 
Held with mute gesture and persuasive mien 
Adroitly governed, yet, himself. — like him 
Who yoked the lions, or who first bestrid 



158 CHRIST IN HADES. 

The snorting steed for battle, on the amazed 

Confronted infantry seen moving swift, 

And footless, like a god, — half awed, half proud. 

Gyes and Cottus loomed in sight, and huge 
Briareus with a hundred folded hands. 
Typhosus terrible with as many heads. 
Each breathing storms, immense Enceladus, 
Coeus and Creus, female Themis stern. 
More feared than loved, and pale Mnemosyne ; 
And, from behind, Hyperion looked down, 
Like his rebated orb, when half beneath, 
And half above, he leans upon the earth, 
And on the shadowy hills and forests bleak 
That edge upon his light, and the great world 
About to rise above him, frowning night 
And cold against his beam, casts down, from far, 
One wide, last look of majesty supreme. 

These to the eye of Cain familiar seemed. 
And nearer to himself, though he with those 
Of younger date, and less affined, stood leagued. 
And now, erect, with hoary might redressed, 
And like an earth-fast oak — that stronger seems. 
Its twisted fibre bared, when sacred made 



CHRIST IN HADES. 159 

To vengeance by the unvictimed bolt of Heaven, 
Than when its rooted strength and verdant tower 
Turned the direct north wind — before them stood 
Their Elder, and undoubted paramount. 

But thoughtful most the seeming shame and loss 
Of his confounded myrmidons to retrieve, 
Soon, at his best, a rousing trumpet broke 
With melancholy clamor through the deep. 
Nor might the chains of Erebus, nor the draught, 
Lethean, of unmixed despair, nor fear 
Of Heaven's thunder, nor superior force 
In men, or gods, or elemental powers, 
Retain them idle at that summons blown : 
But, to the confines of the sight, the field 
Uprose, throughout, and armied all the space ; 
Thus, when the swooping wind a pliant marsh 
Of osiers bends along, its wings o'erpast, 
They rise like one, and stand with whispering leaves. 
Nor did the Titans less in these admire 
Each splendid feature, burnished shield emblazed. 
And silver-seeming limb, and pictured crest 
With shading wings or plume, than they in those 
Their monstrous breadth and stature, (for their bulk, 



160 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Whether on horizontal line it poised, 
Or vertical, seemed hard to tell.) and strength 
And aspect, as of things in nature, hills. 
Or massy clouds in the horizon heaped. 
And shaped by storms, were those, as these, 
Endued with life and motion. But not thus 
The bearded Asar, as they frowned apart, 
Or without order started from their fall, 
Saw the huge ancients ; and the comers deemed 
The Jotuns without doubt, spirits of fire 
And aching frost, the native powers of hell ; — 
Part of their myth unrealized till now. 

And soon perhaps the war had sprung anew 
Between these loose allies, had not again 
The airy plague, returning with worse shock. 
Made manifest the common foe. But now 
The assailants hovered lower, and more near 
The flight of warriors to their quarry came. 
Like vultures stooping on a conquered field. 
And some, with bolder fury, on the cast 
Of spear and javelin following, sword in hand, 
Leaped down ; but the main army kept the air ; 
And each strange foes, and stronger, finds to cope, 



CHRIST IN HADES. l61 

And not inferior, though beneath. Wide raged 

Tisiphone and her fateful sisters, sprung 

From parricide, or the monstered womb of Night. 

Their living twine, they resting, to the ground 

Hung sleeping ; or, if seated, spread around ; 

But now a thousand serpents hissed the ear. 

And from their eyes shot madness. Otus fought, 

And Ephialtes, and the iron blows 

Of Steropes and Brontes clashed in air. 

The triple-hundred hands of Gyes leagued 

With Cottus and Briareus, searched the gloom, 

And dragged down winged squadi'ons, as the arts 

Of fowlers in a snare surprise their prey. 

And loud Typhocus, fierce, together drove 

Whole armies whirled and crushed, or wide dispersed 

With storms blown east and west, and north and south ; 

As when a tempest with the fluttering leaves 

Of a stripped forest plays, and on the air 

The scattered tresses of shorn Ceres strows. 

But who, though frenzied with a strength like theirs, 
And by heroic meditation stern 
Trained like an athlete for the mighty theme, 
Would dare to sing the strife where powers diverse, 



162 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Diversely armed, and numberless to thought, 
Ranged, in one field, the depths and heights of hell ; 
To see, if sight might be, as from the peak 
Of a jarred mountain one beholds the sea 
Beneath, and storm above, and vapor mixed, 
In the wild clouds, with light and glancing fire, 
And all the sky involved with one wide wreck 
Of solid earth, in whirlwind, with torn trees 
And human fabric in the darkened air : 
Or as if rather the essential powers 
Of water, earth, air, fire, at once should meet, 
In naked elemental force, to try 
Which should destroy and reign ; nor might it seem 
Less greatly terrible when the four chief powers 
Of hell encountered, in a war that left 
No second battle theirs, but one full act 
Of many made, and all the lingering plot 
And circumstantial march of ruin marred 
With the swift access of inbreaking death. 
But suddenly on the night, the element 
Of tumult now. as once of silence, fell 
A vast and spreading circle of clear light, 
That from the side next paradise encroached 



CHRIST IN HADES. 163 

Upon the darkness, thickened more beyond ; 

And soon revealed the vexed and horrid space 

With all its battle painted clear, and held 

Distinct in its bright orb, in depth and height 

And utmost bounds ; as if celestial day 

Had windowed their opaque dark roof, and purged 

The atmospheric dross from all the clime ; 

And, on its edge, swept in vast demi-cirque, 

The host of angels, unconcealed, it drove 

Wide o'er their foes beneath ; and far beyond 

Alighting, they began retreat, by these 

Close followed : with what cause for fear 

Behold, and wonder — One of human shape. 

In simple guise, unarmed, and o'er his head 

A white and hovering dove ! and far behind, 

On all sides flocking to this emblem fair 

As to a standard, legions wide-displayed, 

And deep with multitude, the prospect closed ; 

But without spear or martial sign or sound, 

Clad in the candid drapery of peace. 

Yet were their garments clear not touched, nor feet 

Pained by the burning soil ; for, godlike, they 

In moving walked not, but came gliding smooth, 



164 CHRIST IN HADES. 

Like stars adown the sky, or clouds along 
The unimprinted air moved by the wind. 
As from its shores, a shining river floats, 
(Such things are told) unmingled through a pool, 
So came the argent host ; and from the van 
Of glory, seeking darkness and the shades 
Of deeper regions, all the dusky bands 
Before them fled, like night before the morn. 

Oh ! that the voice were mine, and mine the ear 
And visionary power of that inspired 
First builder of a Christian song, whose speech 
Prophetic, laboring things too high for verse, 
Foretold the end of time — doomed at the sound 
And dreadful confirmation by the hand 
Of that eternal angel on the earth 
And restless sea upborne — and all the scenes 
Of glory and of darkness in the act 
Of consummated earth, and heaven withdrawn 
With awful pomp, and solemn trumpets blown. 
Pouring alternate ecstasy and loud woe. 
I too must sing of judgment : not thy theme. 
Celestial seer, the mid-air throne and throng 
Beneath, paining the eye with multitudes 



CHKIST IN HADES. 1G5 

From the discovered depths of earth and sea 
Uprising to the world-dissolving trump, 
And filling east and west and Jiigh and deep, — 
But of the angels, fallen first, and so 
Prejudged in him their head, and head no less 
Of human faction : On whom now retired. 
Before the unshadowed face of heaven expressed 
In human lineaments, both friends and foes. 
And monstrous things and shapes, a gloomy rout 
From the extremest boundaries of pain. 
"Why done, or with what hope none knew ; but him 
They knew the greatest, and to where he sat, 
Still like their god, though bowed, and by despair 
Self-turned to stone, cast up an awful look 
Of doubt and supplication. He his eyes 
Fixed on the spectacle, like one long blind. 
Who stares, suspectful of some dread approach ; 
Then half uprose, and thrice again made feint 
Of rising, ere the strength in his pale limbs 
His stubborn heart diffused to bear him up : 
But stood, at length, with air supreme o'er fear, 
A shape of heaven, or with such look and mien 
As God himself, who now in human form 



1 6(5 CHRIST IN HADES. 

He dared conft'ont, had rather been arrayed, 
Shaped to the eye of heroes, when they prayed 
To Jove the arbiter. Soon, through the ranks. 
Opening in vista wide and deep, he moved 
To meet the bright invasion. Armed he came, 
Plutonian, measureless, and dread as night ; 
Whose king indeed he seemed, and fit to reign 
Over all powers ; and wide around he cast 
A darkness at his coming, as a storm 
That from the ridge of some bleak mountain torn 
With all its clouds, moves down in earth and sky 
To overwhelm the sun. But when his strides 
Had measured half the space — with what design 
Who knows but He who gave him power thus far ?- 
He faltered, and with haughty steps reversed, 
Before the calm severity of mien 
And feature in his opposite, retired ; 
But lingered so, and sought against the shame 
Of his retreat to hold himself upstayed. 
Each backward step impressed the bedded flint 
Whereon he set his strength and sought to stand ; 
Till at the gates of the dark fort which held 
The keys of heavenly access, and of that pit 



CHRIST IN HADES. 167 

Sole egress, tlieir appointed keeper paused. 

Immense they stood, sliut by almighty power, 

And barred secure against less force and skill 

In human or infernal siege applied. 

And here, at bay, the great apostate turned 

Full on his enemy, and frowned despair ; 

And roused his strength, and to his soul, sublime 

With sense of single greatness, while his host 

Stood imbecile, up-summoned for this hour 

The thoughts of all that he had been in heaven, 

Or hoped or claimed on earth, or held in hell. 

With steady front advanced the shining siege ; 
The unarmed army onward, and converged. 
Came, glorious with numbers : but alone 
Moved their eternal leader, and from far 
His aspect shone with unremitted beam 
Direct on Satan : He his dusky shield — 
That heretofore, thrown back, his gloomy head 
Around, and on his mighty shoulders lay 
Like the horizon on the earth at eve — 
Cast forward, drooping his huge spear, inclined, 
But not full-levelled. All the host of saints 
Stood still, and fatal sympathy first moved 



168 CHRIST IN HADES. 

A murmur in his own, with slumberous stir 

As of awaking war : but onward and more near 

Came the celestial Man ; when once again 

He moved, and with a forward step shook hell. 

But at the instant, as with lightning struck, 

Though none perceived the stroke, with arms uptbrown, 

Self-hurled, on the disputed gates he fell, 

And ruined down their strength ; nor fell alone, 

But all his host the silent thunder felt, 

And smote, with wide and simultaneous roar 

Of armored limbs, the adamantine floor. 

But other noise soon rung, and from the saints 
Hosannah, and hosannah ! sweet and loud, 
In that deep cavern, from the echoing air 
Sunk far beneath the roots of earth, as sung 
By warbling seraphs in the top of heaven. 

Now as the golden wheel of day that climbs 
The precipice of the world, on that side whence 
He shines at morning — brightening, as he comes, 
Forests and craggy heights and seas and fields — 
To early eyes, throws high into the air. 
Opaque, or formless void, his welcome light. 
And shapes the dark with splendid fantasy, 



CHRIST IN HADES. 169 

While hovering glories stoop upon his beam, 

And crimson clouds troop in the bannered east; 

So in the gloomy steeps and utmost height, 

Zenith, and all sides round, of teeming hell. 

Angels on cloudy wings hung looking down ; 

Or in the radiance hovered ; or, on high. 

In peopled vistas opening into heaven. 

With bosom-seraphim, transcendent shapes, 

And awful cherubim, before unseen 

In earth or heaven, stood creation's grand 

And glittering guardians, not revealed till now, 

Lest deemed allies at need ; and gazed, while Christ 

And all the armies beatific passed. 

In bright defile, o'er Satan, where he lay 

Along the heap that thundered in his fall. 

Supine, with upward face : But not o'erclimbed 

By men thus easily, without wings to stead. 

Had been the prostrate fiend. Then rose they all 

Into the air, and swift the plumy throng. 

Encircling, held them in their bright caress. 

And in the midst, the cloud which that old fane 

Made glorious with apparition of a form 

Of human aspect, by awed priests beheld, 



170 C II R I S T I N II A D E S . 

Received its body now ; and like one cloud 

Together rose the whole ; while from the air 

A voice fell on the ear of each beneath. 

But seemed in Satan's, sole to him addressed — 

" The Foe is judged." And still their eyes they turned, 

And still their looks hung on the rising host, 

Till seen like a receding sun, and then. 

In the blank height of darkness, like a star ; 

And then the darkness covered all, but still 

They looked into its depths, nor stirred nor spake. 



NOTES. 



NOTES, 



BOOK I. 

1. — . . .sat Atdoneus discrowned. 

The propriety of giving Satan, as king of Hades, the classical 
name of Aidoneus, needs only to be suggested. 



2. — . . . that his pride may play at Jove. 

There is perhaps no occasion for explaining why those who 
represent in Hades the ethnic deities, sometimes give the Supreme 
Being the name of Jove. 

3. — but in the west 

The elect infernal queen ^ . . . 

Astarte or Ashtaroth, the Diana of the Phenicians, and thus 
identified with the Persephone of the Greeks, 



174 NOTES, 



BOOK II. 

1. — In the same world of demons and damned men. 

It may not be thought superfluous, perhaps, to explain why 
Paradise and the place to which custom gives and limits the 
name of Hell, are made regions of the same place. 

"The word Hades, which occurs eleven times in the New 
Testament, and is very frequently used in the Septuagint transla- 
tion of the Old, never signifies in Scripture the place of torment, 
but always the place appropriated for the common reception of 
departed souls. There is no single word in our language that 
has this signification. Homer, Hesiod, Plato, and other Greek 
writers, distinguish Hades from Tartarus, which was the place of 
punishment for the wicked." — Tomline's Exposition of the Third 
Article. 

" Our English, or rather Saxon word, hell, in its original sig- 
nification (though it is now understood in a more limited sense), 
exactly answers to the Greek word Hades, and denotes a con- 
cealed or unseen place; and this sense of the word is still re- 
tained in the eastern, and especially in the loestern counties of 
England ; to hell over a thing is to cover it." — Parkhurst's Greek 
Lexicon ; word "ASr]s. 

"By Hell may be meant the invisible place to which departed 
souls are carried after death ; for though the Greek word so ren- 
dered does now commonly stand for the place of the damned, 
and has for many ages been so understood, yet, at the time of 
writing the New Testament, it was among Greek authors used 



NOTES. 175 

indifferently for the place of all departed souls, whether good or 
bad ; and by it were meant the invisible regions where those 
spirits were lodged. * * * * xhat the regions of the blessed 
were known then to the Jews by the name of Paradise, as hell 
was known by the name of Gehenna, is very clear from Christ's 
last words, ' to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.' " — Burnet 
on the Third Artick. 

That our Lord gives the weight of his authority to the Jewish 
opinion that Paradise and Gehenna were in the same region of 
space — the place of all departed souls, supposed by them to be 
the under-world — is proved by the parable of Dives and Lazarus, 
in which a soul in torment and one of the blessed are made to 
converse with each other across a gulf. 

2. — of earthly saints 

Born ere their Saviour — till that Saviouj-'s power 
Should break its shadowy door and set them free — 
The sad Elysium 

"Inferiora [Eph. IV. 9] autem terrae infernus accipitur, ad 
quern Dominus noster Salvatorque descendit, ut Sanctorum ani- 
mas, qu£e ibi tenebantur inclusas, secum ad ccelos Victor abdu- 
ceret." — «S^. Jerome. 

" Nihil aliud teneatis nisi quod vera fides per catholicam eccle- 
siam docet ; quia descendens ad inferos Dominus illos solum- 
modo ab inferni claustris eripuit, quos viventes in came per 
suam gratiam in fide et bona operatione servavit." — Gregory the 
Great. 

" The end for which the soul of Christ descended into hell was 



17G NOTES. 

not to delivei- any damned souls, or to translate them from the tor- 
ments of hell iinto the joys of heaven. The next consideration is, 
whether by virtue of his descent, the souls of those which before 
believed in him, the patriarchs, the prophets, and all the people of 
God, were delivered from that place and state in which they were 
before ; and whether Christ descended into hell to that end, and 
that he might translate them into a place far more glorious and 
happy. This hath been in the latter ages of the Church the 
common opinion of most men, and that as if it followed necessa- 
rily from the denial of the former : He delivered not the souls of 
the damned, therefore he delivered the souls of them which be- 
lieved, and of them alone ; till at last the schools have followed it 
so fully that they deliver it as a point of faith and infallible cer- 
tainty, that the soul of Christ, descending into hell, did deliver 
from thence all the souls of the saints which were in the bosom 
of Abraham, and did confer upon them actual and essential beati- 
tude, which before they enjoyed not. And this they lay upon 
two grounds : first. That the souls of saints departed saw not 
God; and secondly. That Christ by his death opened the gate of 
the kingdom of heaven." — Pearson on the Creed. 

3. — A shape like man ; . . . 

" As Christ died for us and was buried, so also it is to be be- 
lieved that he went down into hell." — Article III. 

"That Christ descended into hell is not expressly asserted by 
any of the Evangelists ; but they all relate that he expired upon 
the cross, and that after three days he again appeared alive ; 
and therefore it may be inferred that La the intermediate time his 



NOTES. 177 

soul went into the common receptacle of departed souls." — Tomlliie 
on the Third Article. 

" Several places of Scripture have been produced by the an- 
cients as delivering this truth ; of which some, without ques- 
tion, prove it not ; but there are those which have always been 
thought of greatest validity to confirm this article. First, that 
of St. Paul to the Ephesians seems to come to very near the 
words themselves, and to express the same almost in terms: 
' Now that he ascended, what is it but that [he first descended 
into the lou-er parts of the earth?' This many of the ancient 
Fathers understood of the descent into hell as placed in the lower 
parts of the earth ; and this exposition must be confessed so 
probable, that there can be no argument to disprove it. * * * * 

" The next place of Scripture brought to confirm the descent is 
not so near in words, but thought to signify the end of that 
descent, and that part of his humanity by which he descended. 
For Christ, saith St. Peter, ' was put to death in the flesh, and 
quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached 
unto the spirits in prison.' Where the Spirit seems to be the 
so7d of Christ, and the spirits in prison, the souls of thevi that 
ivere in hell, or in some place at least separated from the joys of 
heaven ; whither, because we never read our Saviour went at any 
other time, we may conceive he went in spirit there, when his soul 
departed from his body on the cross. This did our Church first 
deliver as the proof and illustration of the descent, [see note 1, to 
Book IV.] and the ancient Fathers did apply the same in like 
manner to the proof of this article. * * * * The third, but 
principal text, is that of David, applied by St. Peter : ' For 
David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always be- 
fore my face ; for he is on my right hand that I should not be 



178 NOTES. 

moved. Therefore did my heai-t rejoice, and my tongue was 
glad ; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope : because thou 
wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither suffer thy Holy One to see 
corruption.' Thiis the Apostle repeated the words of the Psalmist 
(xvi. 8-10) and then applied them ; he ' being a prophet, and 
seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his 
soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.' 
(Acts xi. 25, &c.) Now, from this place the Article is clearly and 
infallibly deduced thus : If the soul of Christ were not left in hell 
at his resurrection, then his soul was in hell before his resurrec- 
tion ; but it was not there before his death ; therefore, upon or 
after his death, and before his resurrection, the soul of Christ 
descended into hell ; and consequently, the Creed doth truly de- 
liver, that Christ being crucified, was dead, buried, and descended 
into hell. For as his flesh did not see corruption (by virtue of 
that promise and prophetical expression), and yet it was in the 
grave, the place of corruption, where it rested in hope until his 
resurrection ; so his soul, which was not left in hell (by virtue of 
the like promise or prediction), was in that hell where it was not 
left, until the time that it was to be united to the body, for the 
performing of the resurrection. We must therefore confess from 
hence, that the soul of Christ was in hell : And no Christian can 
deny it, saith St. Augustin : 

" ' Quis ergo nisi infldelis negaverit fuisse apud inferos Chris- 
tum "?' " — Pearson on the Creed. 

" Seeing it is a most certain truth that our Saviour's soul did 
immediately go into the place appointed to receive happy souls 
after their recession from the body, and resignation into God's 
hands ; if we take hell in a general and common sense for the 
place or the state of souls departed ; and descending for passing 



NOTES. 179 

thereinto (by a fallino:, as it were, from life, or by going away 
together with the descent of the body ; and thence styled de- 
scending ; what appeareth visibly happening to the body being 
accommodated unto the soul) ; if, I say, we do thus interpret our 
Saviour's descent into hell for his soul's going into the common 
receptacle and mansion of souls, we shall, so doing, be sure not to 
substantially mistake." — Barrow, Ser. XXVIII. 



BOOK III. 

1. — Magog and great Madai old. 

I have somewhere met with the opinion, sustained by plausi- 
ble reasoning, that the descendants of Magog, the son of Japheth, 
peopled northern and eastern Asia. That Madai's descendants 
moved toward the east, is evidenced by what seems to be a 
relic of the name in Media and the Medes. 

2. — Azrael. 
The angel of death, in the superstition of the East. 

BOOK IV. 

1. — and these words 

Spake, 

"Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in 
prison."— S/. Peter. 



180 NOTES. 

"The body of Christ lay in his grave until his resur- 
rection; but his spirit, which he gave up, was with the spirits 
which were detained in prison, or in hell, and preached unto 
them as the ijlace in St. Peter testificth." — The Third Article, 
as first published in the reigji of Edward VI. 

" But in them [the words of St. Peterj, taken in their most 
literal and obvious meaning, we find not only a distinct assertion 
of the fact, that ' Christ descended into hell' in his disem- 
bodied spirit, but, moreover, a declaration of the business 
upon which he went thither, or in which, at least, his soul was 
employed while it was thci'e. ' Being put to death in the 
flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and 
preached unto the spirits in prison, which were sometime dis- 
obedient.' The interpretation of the whole passage turns upon 
the expression, ' spirits in prison ;' the sense of which I shall 
first, therefore, endeavor to ascertain, as the key to the meaning 
of the whole. It is hardly necessary to mention, that the 
' spirits ' here can signify no other spirits than the souls of 
men ; for we read not of any preaching of Christ to any other 
race of beings than mankind. The assertion of the Ajjostle, 
therefore, is this — that Christ went and preached to the souls of 
men in prison. The invisible mansion of dei^arted spirits, 
though certainly not a place of penal confinement to the good, 
is, nevertheless, in some respects a i^rison. It is a place of 
seclusion from the external world — a place of unfinished hap- 
piness, consisting in rest, security, and hope, more than in 
enjoyment. It is a place into which the souls of men never 
would have entered had not sin introduced death, and from 
which there is no exit by any natural means for those who have 
once entered. The deliverance of the saints from it is to be 



NOTES. 181 

effected by our Lord's power. It is described in the old Latin 
language as a place inclosed within an impassable fence ; and in 
the poetical parts of Scripture it is represented as secured by 
gates of brass, which our Lord is to batter down; and barri- 
cadoed with huge massive iron bars, which he is to cut in 
sunder. As a place of confinement, therefore, though not of 
punishment, it may well be called a prison. The original word, 
however, in the test of the Apostle, imports not of necessity so 
much as this, but merely a place of safe-keeping. For so this 
passage might be rendered with great exactness : ' He went 
and preached to the spirits in safe-keeping.' * * * * The 
souls in custody, to whom our Saviour went in his disembodied 
soul and preached, were those who were sometime disobedient. 
The expression ' sometime were,' or ' one while had been dis- 
obedient,' implies that they were recovered, however, from that 
disobedience, and, before their death, had been brought to re- 
pentance and faith in a Redeemer to come. To such souls he 
went and preached. But what did he preach to departed souls 1 
and what could be the end of his preaching % * * * * If be 
went to proclaim to them (and to proclaim or publish is the 
true sense of the words 'to preach') the glad tidings that he 
had actually offered the sacrifice of their redemption, and was 
about to appear before the Father as their intercessor, in the 
merit of his own blood, this was a preaching fit to be addressed 
to departed souls, * * * * and this, it may be presumed, 
was the end of his preaching." — Bishop Horsely. 



183 NOTES 



BOOK VI. 

1. — From old Idpetus. 

"The sons of Japhcth (lapetus); Gomer, and Magog, and 
Madai, and Javan (loan), and Tubal, and Meshech, and 
Tims."— Gen. x. 2. 

2. — And from fair Gomer. 

From Gomer, Gomeria, or Cimmeria, and probably Ger- 
mania — a derivation that will seem forced only to those unac- 
customed to trace the etymology of national and local names. 



BOOK VI. 

1. — ... there, loith the Asar and Asynior, sit 
The Einherier and Valkyrior. 

The Asar (Asiatics) were the Gods, or, rather, a divine race 
of men. The Asynior were the females of the race. The Einhe- 
rier were human heroes, raised by their bravery to sit in the 
Valhalla with the Gods. The Valkyrior were the warlike 
Houries of the Northern Paradise. 

2. — The Berserker, who scorn armor and arms. 

"The champions of the north were called Berserker, in the 
old tongue, from ber, bare, and sckr, a garment ; because they 



NOTES. 183 

wore no armor in battle. They are described by almost all the 
northern writers as men of extraordinary stature and force, sub- 
ject to sudden and violent attacks of passion, under the influence 
of which their fury was ungovernable, and as formidable to their 
natural friends as to their enemies." — Herbert. Hora Scandiccs, 
Note to Helga. 

3. — Bleak Niffelheini from Muspelheim. 
Niffelheim, the region of cold; Muspelheim, of heat. 

4. — the Song 

Of Ragnarok .... 

The twilight of the Gods. For this specimen of genuine 
Norse frenzy, see Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons. 



BOOK VIII. 



1. — The Jotuns. 



The dark, hostile powers of Nature, they figured to them- 
selves as Jotuns, Giants — huge shaggy beings, of a demoniac 
character. Frost, Fire, Sea, Tempest — these are the Jotuns. — 
Carlyk. 



THE END. 



018 597 931 3 



